Over the last few weeks, there has been an intense conversation about reforming the national education system. The debate started with the decision by what has now been redenominated as the Ministry of Education and Sports to cancel formal examinations for Grade 5 students.
The news has been welcomed by educationalists and practitioners as an important milestone to modernize the whole education sector. Yet while this shift can have a profound impact, I am wondering if we are missing the bigger picture in this conversation.
I do trust the expertise and knowledge of those who are being involved in this field and I do hope that this reform can generate a new momentum for even more ambitious reforms, especially for the public, community-run schools. It is important to remind ourselves that the vast majority of these schools are still vastly behind their private counterparts and I am not just referring to infrastructure.
In this regard, it is worthy to note that the important public resources have been invested in upgrading local schools and the outcome of this effort is clearly visible. While the focus of the conversation on education is often, and correctly so, centered on how to enhance quality education, having better, more modern and ideally more welcoming facilities can be an important factor that positively influences and determines teachers’ motivation and enthusiasm.
It is also, in a way, about dignity and respect and not only those of the teachers and other professionals working in the schools but also children. Learning in larger classrooms that are also better equipped can make the difference. Recently visiting a community school on the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley, I admired the use of smart touchscreen technology installed in each classroom.
Yet, in the majority of cases, the infrastructure hosting these schools, despite the modernization process they underwent, remain inadequate and far from modern standards.
At the same time, the way the learning process continues to be off mark and well below what we should expect from a quality public education system is a major concern. Probably we will have to wait for more systemic and ambitious reforms by the new Federal Government, including a rise in the educational requirements to be able to teach, a complex and costly process that cannot happen overnight.
Setting higher standards and reviewing the license system in a way that would also cover primary education is also difficult because it would mean solving the conundrum of temporary teachers, many of whom would end up losing their jobs.
We are talking about thousands and thousands of jobs here and a bold reform must start from the foundations of the learning system, when children, many of whom are deprived of the possibility of attending Early Childhood Education, join the primary education cycle. Because it is here where the future trajectories of a child are shaped and it is here where their professional paths start.
It is not preposterous to tie ECD experiences and the learning outcomes stemming from primary education to a child’s chances of succeeding or failing at life. There is a mountain of evidence that shows the correlation between these two, studies that prove that investments in early stages of the learning cycle do considerably pay off after many years.
The nexus is evident: children attending public schools could have a different, better future if they were really engaged in a meaningful learning process, would directly and clearly benefit the whole society because of the contributions these students would be able to give to the country’s economy.
A study, “The Role of Education Quality in Economic Growth” by Eric A. Hanushek and Ludger Wößmann highlights “how educational quality—measured by what people know—has powerful effects on individual earnings, on the distribution of income, and on economic growth”.
The same research clearly states that “just providing added resources to schools is unlikely to be successful; improving the quality of schools will take structural changes in institutions”.
In short, the focus on enrollment has been important and considerable success has been achieved in this area but this is simply not enough. Pursuing changes in the national education system needs to go beyond a sectoral, silos oriented approach.
Let’s not forget that public, community schools remain epicenters of national poverty because only low-income families send their children to these institutions.
Poor families send their children to institutions that are very accessible compared to private institutions (the fact that they are totally free must be demystified because some charges do still take place) but these schools still remain unable to bring transformative changes in the lives of these children.
Classrooms are still crowded and unfit regardless of the presence of smartboards. The quality of teaching remains low or, at very best, questionable. Sports are not practiced nor encouraged in the same ways they are in many private schools. Moreover, there is no mixing and interactions with children from more privileged backgrounds, entrenching historical discrimination and inequities. Poor children interact with poor kids and this is not a problem per se.
Lack of social mobility is the real issue here. These are determinants of a child’s future life trajectory. Of course there are outliers, excellent students from disadvantaged backgrounds attending public schools and are able to outperform many peers from more privileged backgrounds but what about the majority of these kids?
Who is serving us in cafés, who is attending to us in the supermarkets? You can imagine the answer and these are, in many ways, already success stories. What about those kids ending up in the streets or doing extremely precarious and dangerous occupations?
There is no job that does not deserve respect but why do only certain children always end up doing certain jobs? Tackling inequities in the society would bring more economic development and this would be a win-win for kids from vulnerable backgrounds but also for the broader society.
Can the new government try to untangle the inextricable and self-preserving nexus of inequity, low quality education and insecurity and marginalization that so far has been so unbreakable? It is worthy of reviewing UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2025, Ending child poverty: Our shared imperative.
Efforts at improving public community schools of Nepal cannot be delinked from an even more daunting mission of dealing with poverty and marginalization.
This report could not be clearer: “For children, poverty undermines their health and development, limits their ability to learn and leads to weaker job prospects, shorter lives and higher rates of depression and anxiety. For societies, poverty undermines future economic prosperity and by depriving communities of hope, it creates conditions in which violence and extremism can thrive”.
While it is certainly positive that the recently announced budget has increased the allocation of the education sector by Rs 7bn compared to the current fiscal year, allocating a total of Rs 218.3bn for the education sector, we need a very focused effort to transform the public education system.
There has also been an emphasis on scholarships and school meals for children from Dalit community and this is very positive. Yet a much bigger vision is required. The state, with the support of the civil society (this cannot be discounted at the moment, considering the crisis that most of the NGOs are facing) must indeed turbocharge the goal of bringing quality education in the local community schools.
Abolishing formal exams in Grade 5 can be the linchpin of a broader reform—one that goes beyond education alone to give underprivileged children a better life.
Everything must be put under discussion. Are all local governments able to support and fulfil their mandates in the educational sector? How can a new crop of teachers be phased in a way that does not disrupt the system? How can social workers and mentors paid by the state be involved to support the many cases of dysfunctional families that are disrupting so many children’s lives? The stakes cannot be higher.
Children from vulnerable families must have the right to a successful and meaningful life and not end up doing low paid jobs simply because they never had the opportunities to imagine a different future. While it might be expensive to design and implement a welfare centered public education system, there is no doubt that, in the long term, such a system would bring transformational changes in the society, turning Nepal into an equity oriented nation.
