Kathmandu Post

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33 districts fail to launch literacy drive

KATHMANDU, DEC 17 -
The National Literacy Campaign is likely to miss its target this year as over one third of the districts have failed to conduct classes for the first stage of the drive.

The four-phase campaign launched by the Non-Formal Education Centre (NFEC) under the Ministry of Education (MoE) has not yet started in 33 districts—16 in Central and nine in Eastern Development Regions. The campaign, for which the government has allocated around Rs 700 million, aims to make 1,035,150 people from the 15-60 age group literate by enrolling them in 150 hours of informal classes this year.

NFEC Deputy Director Gopal Bhattarai blamed the ineffective role of District Education Offices (DEOs) for less than satisfactory achievement of the drive. “We provide budget and modality for the classes; the DEOs are solely responsible for conducting them. But most of them are not functioning well,” said Bhattarai. Though the MoE can take action against the DEOs that fail to work as per the plan, this is not happening. For instance, the NFEC had recommended action against Dhanusha and Mahottari DEOs for failing to conduct any classes in the third phase last year, but the MoE did not heed it. 

The campaign, initiated in 2009 to meet the Millennium Development Goal of Education by 2015, has not met its target for the last three years. Just 1.8 million illiterate people were benefited from the drive in 2009 against the target of 2.3 million while only 1 million benefited in 2010 against the target of 1.2 million. An NFEC survey carried out last year shows that the number of illiterate people above 15 years is still 5.17 million. Given the situation, the government will have to make at least 1.25 million people literate annually to meet the target of 100 percent literacy by 2015. 

Posted on: 2011-12-18 09:23

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