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Education for all!
… or for some?
- comparing Nepal and Denmark
Imagine if 20 per cent of the children in Denmark never got
enrolled in school.
Imagine that another 50 per cent dropped out before finishing 5th
grade.
Imagine if every year, more than two thirds of the students in
Danish public schools failed their final 9th grade
exams. Meaning that two of every three students would have either
to repeat the school year once more or would have to leave school
without ever having been able to get a final diploma.
Imagine if in your classroom or in your child’s classroom, a
teacher who had never received any formal training would be left
alone to manage the teaching of 150 children belonging to three
different grades.
Imagine if half of these children by the end of their education
would not be able even to write their own name.
Perhaps this scenario seems rather far out in a Danish context
where primary school is compulsory, where virtually all students
succeed their 9th grade exams, where there is a maximum
limit of 28 students in one classroom and where teachers graduate
from a higher education programme. But in Nepal, the scenario
described above is reality.
Eradicating
poverty
Nepal’s educational disaster has several causes. The main cause is
poverty. More than one third of Nepal’s population live below the
absolute poverty line. For poor households, the earnings and work
of children constitute an important contribution to the family
economy. Moreover, although primary education is in principle free
for all, expenses for examination fees, school uniforms etc. are
often more than a family can provide.
Lack of awareness also blocks children’s access to schools. As the
main occupation of women in rural areas remains domestic work,
many parents consider it unnecessary to educate their daughters.
Furthermore, the current high unemployment rates even among the
well educated contribute to the parents’ doubts about the
usefulness of sending their children to school.
The children, who do get enrolled in school, are not necessarily
better off. Nepalese public schools face the burden of
insufficient public funding, poor physical facilities, an alarming
lack of trained teachers and overcrowded classrooms with as many
as 150 students per class. Therefore the dropout rates are high.
More than half of the children who are enrolled in 1st
grade never reach 5th grade.
For many girls in the rural areas, child marriage constitutes
another barrier to education. In many places, girls are married
off early in their teens whereupon they move to their husband’s
family to do household work. This most often also means quitting
school.
Yet another obstacle to education is language. Ethnic peoples make
up approximately half of Nepal’s population. Many of these only
learn Nepali as their second language as they have their own
mother tongue. Therefore, many children do not even know how to
speak Nepali when they start in school. Confronted with education
and curriculum in Nepali, many of them lose confidence and
motivation and soon drop out.
MS Nepal
and education
In 2003 and 2004, MS has chosen “Education and Development” as its
Global Action theme. This theme is of particular relevance to
Nepal. Education is central to poverty eradication as well as to
democracy. By improving people’s literacy, knowledge and awareness
as well as their analytical and communicative skills, one is also
improving their ability to take action to change their own living
conditions and claim their rights. However, if Nepal is to meet
the UN Millennium Development Goal of education for all before
2015, action needs to be taken now. Not least, because in the
present Nepalese context it is obvious that the challenge is not
only to provide all children access to education, but also
– and perhaps even more so – to ensure the quality of this
education.
Bearing this in mind, almost all of MS Nepal’s partner
organizations have dedicated a main priority to education in their
programmes.
The conclusion of partnerships with a variety of organizations
ranging from self-help groups (e.g. CWD, WWA) to large and
long-time well-established Nepalese NGOs (e.g. BASE, KYC); and
from NGO resource centers (e.g. NEPAN, NPI) to governmental bodies
(e.g. district education offices and Fisheries Development
Centre), has provided MS Nepal with the possibility of addressing
educational needs in various ways and within many different areas.
MS Nepal is working to promote and develop education among
children as well as adults and at grass-root as well as government
level.
MS Nepal Partner Organisations
OD:
launching an education programme for ex-kamaiya children
One of the major recent achievements of MS Nepal in the area of
education has been the winning of the bid to be beneficiary of
Operation a Day’s Work 2002 (OD).
In 2001, MS Nepal and its Nepalese partner organization Backward
Society Education (BASE) submitted a proposal to OD for an
education project to be carried out among the children of
ex-bonded labourers – the ex-Kamaiya - and other poor and
marginalized communities in Bardiya District in the Mid-Western
part of Nepal. The project aims at ensuring relevant and quality
education free of cost for the children of the target group.
Rather than building up institutions parallel to the present
government school system, the project intends to relate its
education assistance to the existing structures. A primary focus
of the project is to develop a new general approach with regard to
management of children’s education. The aim of this new approach
is to stimulate all stakeholders – parents, teachers, children and
local authorities – to take ownership of the schools as well as of
the basic content of the curriculum. Furthermore, the creation of
a learning environment that is child-focused and equitable as well
as in deference to the needs of different groups of children and
families is emphasized in the project.
According to the schedule, the education project will be launched
in Spring 2003. On the MS Nepal web pages, you can find more
information about the OD, BASE and the Kamaiya movement as well as
read the latest updates on the progression of the project.
For more information on OD:
 LINKS
Website of Operation - A Day's Work
Kamaiya
Articles
http://www.od.dk/nepal2002/nyt/default.htm
http://www.od.dk/nepal2002/omprojektet.htm
http://www.od.dk/nepal2002/default.htm )
For more information on BASE:
Base Website
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