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.