By Nitya Nanda Timsina

DHULIKHEL, Kavre, Dec 3:In a bid to attract more and more girls to schools, the government together with various multi and bilateral donors is currently working to open girls’ hostels in several remote and far-flung districts around the country.

If everything goes according to the plan, the project would be completed within the next five years, officials said here today. Under the Secondary Education Support Programme (SESP), which is about to be finalised by Ministry of Education, Danish government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), construction of the hostel buildings for the girls would begin from 2003.

Girls from grades six to twelve belonging to the poor and far-flung districts would be provided full accommodation in such hostels. However, the government officials said that the districts are yet to be identified.

Rajaram Shrestha, the deputy director of the Secondary Education Development Centre, told The Kathmandu Post Tuesday that in order to increase the access in girls and remove the widening gender disparity, the government has envisaged constructing hostels for girls in the pro-poor districts. However, he said that the agreement between the donors and the government is yet to be finalised.

“We are planning to identify at least 10 poor and remote districts for the construction of girls’ hostels and possibly expand it to other regions depending upon the need,” Shrestha said.

Those districts would be selected on the basis of UNDP Human Development Index and the national education indicator and the construction work would kick-off from the beginning of 2003, he said.

“This programme (SESP) would be enforced and implemented soon,” Ram Swarup Sinha, under-secretary of DoE told the journalists. He was presenting his paper on “Secondary Education Support Programme (SESP)” on the second day of the two-day workshop for journalists, organised by the Department of Education (DoE) in Dhulikhel Tuesday.

The proposed 7.5 million dollar secondary education support programme, jointly supported by donors-Danida, ADB and the government, has also planned to provide scholarships, school-dress, books and stationeries to the students and increase the quality of learning and raise SLC pass percent to 60.

According to Sinha, the SESP would also be launched in about 65 non-priority districts on the World Bank’s strategy-the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). The proposed project is of five-year duration.

However, officials said the project would continue in the next phase until the next 15 years and bring about what they said a quality human resource in the country and remove the roots of poverty in the country, which according to experts is aggravated by illiteracy and lack of access in girls.

“A core document is recently prepared with the joint initiative of the government, the ADB and the Danida with an objective of providing quality education, poverty alleviation and the development of quality human resource,” officials said.