My Fairy Tale

I think Albert Einstein has rightly said, "“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”

Sunil, now in grade seven has started to be so curious towards, reading and showing what new thing he has learnt. He comes to me and says, "Miss, I read the whole book and also understood it. But I can't say it in English, so first I will say in Nepali and then try in English." I smile looking at him and remind him the rules of our class that we need to try and express whatever we know in English. He insists to say in Nepali then in English. Finally I agree and he starts to say the story in Nepali and then tries in his broken English. I know if any other listens to it, they may laugh at it. But his broken English gives me an immense pleasure that he at least is speaking because, it's like a miracle to me. He was the same child whom I used to beg to speak. He would never speak. He would just stay quite whatever question I used to ask him and now, he raises his hand each time to speak. 

Rohan, another student of the same grade was so eager to show me his old torn small pocket dictionary that he had borrowed from his elder brother. Nowadays, that dictionary is always with him. He says me time and again that  if I need that dictionary anytime I could go and ask with him. He has become so curious to learn the new vocabularies and word meanings. 

Denish, now has the habit of reading 'Republica'. He is the first person to go and grab the newspaper whenever it is delivered. He first turns the page of sports and then slowly turns towards the op-ed page, just to see that if there is anything he can use in his speech that he has to say in assembly. 

oh! oh ! am I talking only about boy? My girls are also not less. Last Friday Ssabina had to present on small poem book. There were not more than five words. Boys said that it was not useful for them but she created a tune for it and then sang that in a beautiful way and all the boys were thinking why we didn't thought about that way. 

Hasana, with her other three best friends, they are so creative that each time they prepare for their presentation, they have a new method. They always compete with boys to draw the pictures of the stories. I don't know from where they generate new ideas but every week they come with a new one and that really surprises me. 

These all the miracles, really amuses me. I wait for Fridays to come. Yes, exactly it's the weekend, ha ha. But more than that, it's the day when my children do the presentation of the story books and the fairy tales that they have read for the last one week and every time I see it, it brings a big smile on my face and I am forced to think is this my fairy tale?  

Justice For Rihana

Can you imagine a situation where someone is setting fire on you? In my case, I can't just think about it, I get goose bumps when I only tend to put myself in that situation. And it's more heart aching when it's from that person, who has promised to take care of you as his wife. 19 years old Rihana Sheikh Dhapali from Banke had to face the same trauma. Let us not put of our brains on exercise for guessing the reason. It was on such a trivial reason, that's for not bringing a golden watch, motorcycle and buffalo as dowry.

It has become more than a century that we are celebrating 'International Women's Day and right activists are advocating the protection of the women's rights globally; the status of women in Nepal is still very pathetic. Rihana, is the recent example but she is not the only one to face it.  Violence against women is increasing at an alarming rate. According to the report unveiled by Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC), of the cases of violence against women reported in the country in 2013, most of them were related to the domestic violence. 1, 569 women became victims to domestic violence in the year 2013.  Among them also, 108 were killed by the members of their in laws for not bringing dowry. Also, there are several reports on incidences of violence against women including suicide and the murder and different cases of violence which remain unnoticed. These violence cases are unheard.

The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993 has mentioned that; violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and the prevention of the full advancement of women. And in the context of Nepal, among the various causes of domestic violence, dowry-related hostilities, polygamy, assaults on women accused of being witches and disputes involving properties are common according to National Women Commission. In most of the cases, the perpetrators are no stranger to the woman but a member of her own family, from which we can lead to the conclusion that even the home is not a safe place for women.

It's not the case that Nepal has not made any laws on it. Nepal acceded to the convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on 14 May 1991. Article 26 of the 2007 Interim Constitution of Nepal guarantees the right to be free from torture and mandates that torture should be punishable by law. But if we closely analyze the present Act on Domestic Violence, we can find several challenges. However, there are problems with the reporting and filing of the cases since there are several instances where oral complaints were not registered or filed. Even when they are filed, the failure of the state authorities to react to criminal cases as prescribed by law and resorting to 'mediation' processes outside the criminal justice system contributes to widespread impunity for the perpetrators; is increasing the prevalence of violence against women and girls across the Nepali society.

Apart from lacunas, there are some good jobs also. We must not overlook the good examples on ending violence against women. Different worthy activities are accomplished to break the silence relating violence and to ensure justice to the victims. So, now we must find the loop hole, where is it lacking and what must be done to cover it? There must be something important that we are missing in the process of advocacy. Let's find it together. And at this moment Rihana wants the justice. She wants to see her culprit, that is her spouse and in-laws arrested and punished, whom the police haven't been able to. Let us make sure that we would not have to hear the news of another Rihana on hospital. Elie Wiesel says, "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Let us go for it. For this, we are not obliged to be a women right activist or we should be her family members, we are all human and we have sisters and for our sister's sake let's make such environment where we can make ensure the safety of our daughters, sisters, wives and mothers. It would be the true justice for Rihana. 

Published in Republica 05/18/2014 http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=75024

We want 'No Barriers' to education

Most of the times, we think about those children who have never been to school and we have the opinion that most of the out-of-school children in Nepal belong to the hard-core population who have economic problems. But there are some children also who have attended school in some parts of their lives but have never been able to continue it or have dropped out without passing their S.L.C.  We always tend to look at the gross numbers of the students drop out but never try to analyze it. If we consider the extremely high dropout rates  and if we assume that many of the out-of school population might have attend school at one point of time and they could have dropped out for some reason.  In this case, we might need to look at the factors associated with school dropout more critically. Thus, enrolling the children in school is not the only solution of the issue.

Despite the fact that education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have provided a pathway to effective planning, implementation and monitoring, there still exist many gaps in addressing education. Many children today leave school without being able to read and write effectively, making it harder for them to gain admission to higher levels of education. As per the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Nepal needs to ensure primary education for every child by 2015, which was short by 36 percent when the target was first set in 1999.  With only one year left to meet the education Millennium Development Goals, we can see a gloomy picture of Nepal's achievement.

Quantitatively, Nepal has made impressive progress in basic education in recent decades. Today over 90 percent of children enroll in primary schools, and there is virtual gender parity in enrollment.  But the quality of public basic education is so poor. The result of School Leaving Certificate (SLC), a final secondary level national examination, often referred to as the 'iron gate' since it determines which students will be eligible for higher secondary programs, illustrate the bleak reality of Nepal's public education system each year. We have only been thinking about the growth rate in student enrollment in the school but we fail to analyze that how many of the students who get enrolled continue it and pass their S.L.C. Although Nepal has allocated 17 percent of the total budget to education, which is quite higher than other developing countries, it is unlikely to achieve the MDG mainly due to the high dropout rate. The report of Department of Education states that just 74.3 percent of children enrolled in Grade 1 reach Grade 5 while 45 percent quit school before reaching the lower secondary level. According to the report, 7.9 percent of students drop out after the first year wild 59. 2 percent are out of the education system by the time they reach Grade 10.

There are several reasons why this is happening. Most of the students fail to continue their schooling because of various socio-economic factors. There is also a lack of equal access to education for girls, with many being forced into early marriages to help sustain the family financially while their brothers are sent to school. Sexual violence against girls,challenging family environments, poor sanitation are some of the main reasons.  The United Nations Secretary General's Global Education First Initiative has a list of 18 barriers to school enrollment and completion, quality of learning and global citizenship. They are unaffordable costs, a shortage of classrooms, humanitarian emergencies, gender discrimination, child labour, shortage of qualified teachers, lack of learning materials, weak foundation of early learning, challenging family environment, mismatch of skills and today's livelihood, language barriers, hunger and poor nutrition, ineffective system to evaluate the performance of students. And these are the barriers to education of our country too.

There is a great need to address these barriers in education ensuring that government, civil society creates effective and sustainable partnerships that expand educational opportunities to everyone. Education  is the answer to the greatest challenges we face in the society, we need to focus on overcoming the barriers on the best possible ways. We need to build schools, train teachers and improve the learning environment for all children. It has been shown that we could lift over 170 million people out of poverty simply by teaching every child in low-income countries basic reading skills.  So let us make this a reality in our country as well. 

Education management, quality, relevance, access are some of the critical issues of education in Nepal. Societal disparieties based on gender, ethnicity, economic class, geographic hindrances have made the goal of education a challenge for the country. So why not make a move to overcome it. There is solution for each and every problem. It's never too late to start. Let's not depend on government each time. Let us work from our side also to end this barrier of education. We all are the heroes  who want our country to progress. We, who are educated are fortunate, now it's our turn to pay off. Let us take a step, may be small but break the barrier of education so that other will too get a chance to continue their schooling as we don't want any barrier to education. Let us say together, we want no barriers to education.