MDG target: Brakes on school enrolment
With the nationwide School Enrolment Campaign not bearing the expected fruit, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has put a brake on the ‘unsuccessful’ drive from this academic session. The campaign kicked off in some selected communities of 46 districts on Sunday.
Launched in 2003 across the country to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on school enrolment, the campaign failed to fare well in all the districts. The drive, a part of Education for All (EFA) Programme, is targeted to the children of 5-14 age group.
According to data at Department of Education (DoE), of 3,465,124 children in primary level age group, 163,861 are still out of school. The campaign has target to enrol 58,630 children this year and increasing the enrolment rate by two percent.
Under the enrollment drive, schools will launch welcome programme to new students till April-end and door-to-door campaign will start for 15 days from May 1.
DoE officials say the campaign has mainly targeted in those districts and communities where Net Enrolment Rate (NER) is lower than the national average.
“Unlike previous year, we have initiated the campaign in the areas where marginalised communities such as Badi, Haliya, freed Kamaiyas and Kamlaries live,” said DoE Deputy Director Ganesh Poudel Deputy.
The three-week programme, in its initial phase, had attracted children, but it couldn’t encourage marginalised communities into sending their children to school. Earlier, the DoE had directed district education offices of 21 districts having low NER rate to explain why the school enrollment was low. Nepal should achieve the MDG target of 100 percent NER in primary education within next four years, which was short by 36 percent in 1999.
Against the growth rate of student enrolment of more than three percent (to meet the target), Nepal, at present, is making only around two. By 2010, NER should reach 96 percent, but it hovered around 94.
Last year some 46,000 students were enroled in school under the campaign, of which 9.9 percent quit education in midway. The repetition rate in class one was 26.5 percent last year.
Posted on: 2011-04-18 09:50
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