Quality Education:
Being Challenge in Community
School of Nepal
Quality is at the spirit of education. It
influences what students learn, how well they learn and what benefits they draw
from their education. Quality
education means applicable for the children, communities and society as well as
ability of children to acquire knowledge and significant learning skill. Education which helps to save our culture and fulfill our
basic needs is quality education so;
Quality education enables people to develop all of their attributes and skills
to achieve their potential as human beings and members of society. In the words of
the UNESCO Report,(1996) “Education is the heart of both personal and
community development; its mission is to enable each of us , without exception,
to develop all our talents to the full and to realize our creative potential,
including responsibility for our own lives and achievements of our personal
aims.” Quality education should help to develop
different aspects of student’s such as knowledge, skill enhancement, norms,
values and working habits to become a productive citizen.
Most
of the community schools in Nepal have not been able to perform as per the
expectation of the people. Consequently, most people do not regard them very
positively. This situation of public disenchantment with the community school
has emerged due to lack of sense of ownership of the school on the part of the
people. It is a fact that “community school serves over 85% children of school
going age in the country” (DOE Flash Report 2012). Despite the government’s
initiatives to infuse sense of ownership, responsibility to the community for
the betterment of community schools, not much progress has been made. The main
bodies of the community school are Government of Nepal (GoN), School Management
Committees (SMC), Parents and, Children who are responsible for the quality
education improvement of the community schools.
The
Government of Nepal (GoN) has made several consolidated efforts through the
educational sector program for ensuring quality education in the community
schools since the last two decades. All these interventions are aimed at
improving the access to the quality education in Nepal. GoN, under the Ministry
of Education (MoE) has its own existing rules, regulations and mechanism to
operate the community schools. Different national and international
organizations and counselors have been conducting discussions, and advocacy for
making community schools capable to fulfill their educational goals. However,
the stipulated goals are not being achieved as per the expectation. Quality
education in community schools have been adversely affected by various
political and social activities. Even the concerned bodies are not properly
involved in monitoring process. Lack of good governance seems to be the major factors
hindering quality education in community schools.
School
Management Committees (SMC) are playing major role in the community school.
Where they are managed overall schools like planning, teacher hire, student
enrollment and school system. Many of the SMC even don’t know how to organize
meetings, how to put their agenda forward and how to minute the decisions with
plan of action and follow up for their implementation. However, the quality of
education in community school has always been questionable especially with the
low pass percentage in school Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams form the
community school. Due to lack of a
pragmatic vision, misuse of budget, rampant corruption and political
instability, there has been much damage to Community school education systems
of Nepal. That way; the
formation of SMC has been enforced in order that the community has direct role
in improvement of school performance.
One of the major issues in the current scene
of educational management and resource mobilization in Nepal relates to the feeling of people
in our community is that, education is the responsibility of the
government only so;
community schools are unable to fully operate as direct by the education act of
government. School management communities are established
but are unable to active responsible to maintain the quality education. “The pass percentage of the students taking SLC
exams from community schools is less than 20 percent.” (DOE Flash Report 2012.) The disgraceful
performance in the SLC exam is the testimony to the fact that the present community school education system has become a humiliation.
Therefore, to continue with the present school education system is like beating
a dead horse for race. There is
no reason why our government should stick to the present, faulty system of
education in schools. Our politicians and high-ranking pedagogues at the helm
of responsible posts must accept a flaw in our education system. In order to
revamp the present school education system, it must be replaced by another
system that must enhance the standard of education.
The
problem of the quality of the school education system is particularly in community
schools. The nationwide survey “involving 450 secondary schools and
approximately 22,500 students and the case studies of 28 effective and
ineffective secondary schools carried out within the study on student SLC performance
reveal that hardly any teaching and learning take place in many community
schools in rural areas. There is very little testing and no remedial support
for student’s inn difficulty. This practice of neglecting weak students starts
at primary level, and carries on through secondary.” EBHR 32 (p.51). It is not
just the lack of physical, instructional, and human resources. Even when
resources were available, there was no teaching and learning. Courses were not
completed in time. Teacher absenteeism was high. Even if the teachers were
present in schools, teachers did not teach. As well as corporal punishment is
still exists and It’s necessary to promoting peace in school.
On the other hands, Nepal's education system has been passing through a very
critical time. The recent performance in the School Leaving Certificate (SLC)
exams indicated how the investment of community school education was being
wasted. The positive side is that the private schools have done really well,
showing the success of private investment. I
am not saying that all private schools are doing everything right. Poor quality
education, irregular classes, unqualified teachers, nepotism, politicization,
and poor infrastructure have large difference in performance between the community
and private schools. This large difference in performance between Community and
private schools betrays the regressive character of the Nepalese education
system. Community schools are unable to regulate properly and peacefully to maintain
the quality standards, and also unable to held common responsibility and
accountability among the guardians, teachers and school management committees.
Nepal is
basically composed of rural villages (over 80%), the problems of illiteracy, non-enrolment
to school and high school dropout are felt here. On the other hand, the children in the rural
areas who do not attend the school are to be found helping their parents in
farming, or looking after cattle in which cases they are developing confidence
of work capabilities to take the responsibilities of the family
professions. Such children are to be
found in full control of their work in farm or in cattle herding. The child is also likely to be aware of the
plants, and animals around the grazing land and in the village. He/she is also capable to predict weather for
the day and take decisions for his/her work.
But this child is illiterate and therefore uneducated from the
perspective of current education system. On the other hand a child who is clothed and
shoe lace tied by his/her mother and is walked to the school, but who is
capable to read and write alphabets and the names of the animals
and plants but never seen the
animals and plants in real environment are the model children for the school
education. The question is -- where is
this current education system leading us to?
The
school education does
not have roots touching the social and economic contexts of Nepal. Many of the day to day activities of the
people go against the schooling. Besides, those children who are successful in
education often get away from the villages and the community. What aspirations and
values are we providing through education? Is not the modern education
anti-community, particularly in the rural situation? Is the current school education gives
what we really wanted in order to prepare our
children for life? Do we really want to abandon all our native ways, knowledge,
skill, innovation and system? Can we
sustain such change?
The
problems and the issues discussed are not that simple as it may seem that it
could be solved by developing policies and giving objective programs. The
tricky issues and difficult challenges, hope of better educational development
stand as the way to solve them all. In the fig.; Nepal School Aid (NSA) have
deliberately separated the eight components into two groups of four, and
labeled the first group as system components (National Standards, Governance,
Initial Teacher Capability, Curriculum) since they are all determine by the
rules, procedures and content of the education system. The second group NSA
have labeled as school components since they can all be determined controlled
and improved by the school management committee and school itself. Therefore
when we bring together all eight components from the education system and the
school management committee or school we have a clear pattern to determine the
quality of education provided by any school at any level. Therefore, using
these components practically at community School of Nepal, the quality of
education in community school can be measured for the benefit of the child, the
teachers, the parents and the whole community overall.
EFA
Global Monitoring Report (2005) “Whilst its framework looks different to our
own the components are virtually the same with as much emphasis placed on the
school as on the system.” (P.35). The report emphasizes quality as an issue in
many attempts to improve education in countries such as Nepal which too often
emphasizes the quantitative aspects such as attendance figures, pass rates,
gender equality etc, as opposed to the qualitative aspects such as teaching
methods and approaches for organizing education and the people’s growing demand
for better accessibility to basic education. There is an urgency to knock all
the national or international doors through such type of writings to rethink in
the investment approach to make education more equitable. This was crucial in building a strong foundation
for moving towards a sector wide approach for a comprehensive development of quality
education in Nepal.
According to School Sector Reform Plan, SSRP (2009-2015), “The major objectives of SSRP are to: (i) expand basic education
provision for all children, particularly girls and marginalized children; (ii)
improve education quality; and (iii) strengthen the institutional capacity of
the education system.” The SSRP aims to bring
the entire school system under one logical management, governance and financing
structure. Although it is not define exactly what quality education in a
context of Nepal means, the way the indicators are set to evaluate improvement
in quality of education point out that it means achieving objectives of school
education in relation to overall capacity of the students or student’s learning
achievements in different levels.
Overall situation of the
community schools, we have faced lots of
challenges for improve quality education in community schools. The challenge is how to make school community, teachers, SMCs and
concerned education officials responsible for betterment of school performance
and how to infuse a sense of accountability and ownership so that they have a
positive perception of their school and strive to materialize that their school
is the best school from all angles. So, we have encouraged
to the entire stakeholder, SMC, parents and children for their responsibility
and enhance capacity development of them. As well as changed the management
planning and curriculum which should be practical and skillful for children.
After the complete education, they have to do use their skill and improve their
lifestyle. Thus, those plan and
policy should be formulate and strongly apply in the school obviously improve
quality education of the community school and community school children can
able to compete anywhere in their life to survive themselves. It’s hoped that
quality education of Community school for all children will continue to
improve.
