Ratio of schools handed over to community encouraging: Govt official

March 28, 2006
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A senior government official has claimed that the ratio of handing over school management to community is encouraging and the quality of education has improved after handing over school management to communities.

Talking to Nepalnews, Spokesperson at the Ministry of Education and Sports Lava Prasad Tripathi said that the government handed over management of nearly 2,300 schools to community, so far. The government started transferring government schools to communities from 2002.

As per the target the government has to handover 3,500 schools to the community in this fiscal year, which has just three months left for completion.

He however expressed confidence that they will meet the target.

The Maoist affiliated student union has been warning communities not to accept management of schools saying it is a ploy of government to transfer economic burden to communities, but refuting such claims, Tripathi said it is handover of management to provide quality education through direct involvement of communities.

In many areas local Maoists have warned communities not to accept the management responsibility over their own schools and where the transfer had already happened, return the responsibility to the government.

“It is only to handover the monitoring and evaluation duty to the parents not the government leaving its responsibility,” Tripathi added.

He also claimed that the quality of education has increased in schools after community took the responsibility of school management as the stakeholders directly participate in the process.

“The attendance of student and teachers increased, the condition of sanitation also improved as guardians started to participate in the management process of the school,” he added.

There are 26,000 public schools in the country and 107,000 teachers are involved in these schools.

Conflict of the country and misconception of people about handing over school management to the communities are the main hindrances for it, Tripathi added.