KATHMANDU - There was news in the media past week that the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives have started discussions with the parliamentarians to amend the School Education Bill, 2080. The bill was registered in the House of Representatives by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology some 11 months ago where one hundred 51 parliamentarians proposed more than 1700 amendments on the Bill. The debate started on questions such as whether to keep the provision of the constitution that gives the right to school education to local government or to shrink it, to make private schools non-profit or to leave them as commercial companies, how to manage relief and ECD teachers, open call for the post of headmasters, whether to abolish teachers' organizations affiliated to political parties, etc. - the Onlinekhabar news portal reported.

It was mentioned in the other news that parliamentarians of Nepali Congress and Nepal Communist Party (UML) in the Committee questioned the capacity of local governments pointing that the results of the SEE had dropped due to the lack of ability of Municipalities to manage the school education and doubted if secondary education should be under the purview of  them.

According to the provision of the Constitution, the Local Government Operation Act has elaborated the authority of education up to the secondary level to the local level. It has been 6 years since the local governments have been managing the school according to the Constitution and the Act. During this period, the regulation by the nearest government is definitely effective, for example, schools that used to be closed for months are operating much more regularly, and teachers who were absent from school for many weeks have come to schools regularly. Therefore, it is necessary for parliamentarians to pay attention to the fact that school education can be improved only by making the local government strong and efficient. 

Ignoring the fact that schools are more dynamic and improved than before, it seems that school education will remain in the status quo due to the narrowing of the authority of the local government. It seems that the attention of parliamentarians should be taken into consideration to make the School Education Act to give full rights to the local government in the School Education Act, as it will be effective only when it is closely managed to identify and regulate the needs of schools. It seems that the parliamentarians should observe the acts of  local governments as local residents rather than as an officer under the Federal Government.

The news that the education minister has also changed along with the change in the government coalition gained importance in the news. Ms Vidya Bhattarai has become the Minister of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) who belongs to UML. Soon after the change of the Minister, the Community School Management Committee Federation of Nepal has submitted a memorandum to Minister Bhattarai demanding the cancellation of the Guidelines issued by the MoEST regarding the transfer of teachers.

Dissatisfied with the results of the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) which is taken at the end of class 10, 18 thousand 6 hundred students applied for the retotaling their marks to the National Examinations Board, the results have been changed by 5.5 percent became news in the media last week. According to the news, this is a 0.22 percent of the total examinees. The National Examination Board's negligence was criticized in the media last week after the result of retotaling.

It was reported that MoEST Bhattarai has said that there will be a study about the negligence of the National Examination Board after the Complementary Examination, saying that there was a weakness in the examination of the answer sheets of SEE. Meanwhile, the chairman of the NEB, Mahashram Sharma, has informed that students who are not satisfied with the SEE result can see their answer sheet and if they are not satisfied with it, they can ask for re-examining the answer sheet. It was mentioned in the news that they are preparing to take applications for re-examination after the ‘grade improvement’ exam is over.

A  error of mere 0.2 percent should not be considered unnatural in the process of examining the answer sheets of nearly 5 lakh students, putting the number obtained in each answer on the cover of the answer sheet, summing it up and putting the score in the table, and the number sent by the examiner until the final result is prepared. Of course, it will have a great impact on the concerned individual, but it shows that the media has not been able to distinguish which is an issue of human error magnified by emotions and which one is the fundamental issue to be addressed and queried.

The Eighth Amendment of the Education Act in 2073 changed the structure of the school. It should be necessary for the media to explore the reasons for maintaining the centralized SLC style examination of the past and to create pressure to operate it at the provincial level. The law says that the examination of class 10  be conducted by Provinces (although not fully constitutional), still, the system of administering the examination by the Federal Government continues. 

Interest of private school owners who do business by showing the result of SEE like SLC in the past and due to the greed of the officials for the opportunity of mobilizing the resources in the name of examinations is well known. Even though the name of the examination has been changed, there is little discussion in the media about maintained status quo. Instead of paying attention to the children's learning, the media seems to be misled to make hue and cry about the results. Let the issue of changing system of exam let alone.

There were very few students appearing in the remedial classes conducted by Kathmandu Metropolitan City for the students who intend to participate in the ‘grade improvement’ examination of SEE was reported in the Gorkhapatra Daily. It was mentioned in the news that although the metropolis is conducting free remedial classes in various schools by mobilizing public school teachers, very few of the examinees belonging to the NG group who attend the SEE appear in the classes.

There was news that the Curriculum Development Center suspended one of its employees accused of taking bribe. Former Forest Minister and Janata Samajwadi MP Birendra Mahato had complained that he had to pay 5 thousand rupees as bribe to the staff of the Centre for getting his son's Equivalency Certificate. It was mentioned in the news that the MoEST has formed a three-member investigation committee to investigate this incident. There was also news that the Home Minister also reported to have instructed the police to investigate the incident.

10,171 students participated in the examination conducted by the Kathmandu Metropolis for the Class 11 scholarship to be provided by 390 private schools in the City, news quoted.

According to the annual timetable for teacher recruitment for the financial year 2081/082, the Teachers Service Commission has published the schedule of calling for secondary level teachers in January, for lower secondary level teachers in February and in April for primary level teachers.

There was a news in Ratopati News Portal that only 100 graduates get job opportunities in the country out of 2 thousand people who graduate in agriculture annually. The rest migrate abroad.

Tribhuvan University (TU) Academic Council has approved the calendar for the academic session 2081. It was mentioned in last week's news that the results should be published within 90 days of the examination. TU Service Commission has issued a notification to conduct the written examination of Assistant Professors on August 5 after three years of advertisement. TU is also going to make arrangements to give ‘opportunity exams’ to the students of the final year of undergraduate. It has been decided to arrange for students who have passed the first, second and third year exams of the undergraduate level, but have failed in one or two subjects in the fourth year, to be given an opportunity to take the exam immediately, quoted the news.

There was news that the students of Nepal Student Union affiliated to Nepali Congress beaten up Ashish Ranabhat, a teacher of Gorkha Polytechnical School in Palungtar Municipality - 4, accusing of failing in the practical portion of the exam. 

There was news that Adikavi Bhanubhakta Campus in Damauli in Tanahun has started teaching Magar language. The Balewa Multipurpose Campus in Baglung, which was established 34 years ago, is about to close after the number of students decreased, the news came. The number of students in the campus is decreasing as many go abroad for employment after class 12. According to the news, earlier there were around 150 students coming to the campus regularly, but now not even 50 students are enrolled.

There was news that the students of Kathmandu University's Faculty of Engineering and Science have drawn the attention of the registrar, demanding to maintain the dignity of the examination. According to the news, on June 27, the University announced examination schedule of Engineering and Science in advance of 15 days but the University changed the schedule after seven days. The students submitted a memorandum to the registrar protesting against that action.

It has come in the news last week that this year, more students than last year have taken No-Objection Certificate (NOC) to study abroad. According to the news, last year 100,000 foreign study permits were issued whereas this year around 114, 000 have been given the permission. The government, however, does not have the information whether they actually have gone to study abroad or not.

Nepali students  returned to Nepal from Bangladesh taking different routes after the protest against the controversial Special Reservation in the Government Service to the children of Freedom Fighters in Bangladesh intensified, the news stated.

Even if the students ungraded in the SEE examination appear in the ‘grade improvement’ exam they cannot benefit from the opportunity. How will students be ‘gradable’ who were unable to learn in school in a year, in a month? How students who cannot learn from Class 1 to 10, learn in a month? These were the questions to MoEST in an article by Samjhana Wagle with the suggestion that long-term solutions should be found .

There is an example of even those who write in the field of education pay more attention to the physical condition of the school rather than to the students' learning by Sudarshan Adhikari in Gorkhapatra, who has written about the problems in the education sector. He has given importance to issues such as lack of toilets, lack of playground, lack of library, lack of classrooms, lack of physical infrastructure, but much less to the issues such as low number of teachers/staff in the article.

The purpose of this news review is to classify and synthesize the educational content of the week and provide objective comments from the point of view of social justice and creative pedagogy to the policy makers and stakeholders in one place. In this joint effort of Center for Education Policy and Practice (CEPP) and Edukhbar, the news of daily newspapers Kantipur, Gorkhapatra and The Himalayan Times, online news portals Online Khabar, Setopati and Ratopati and Himalaya TV and Nepal Television from 6-26 July 2024 are covered – the Editor.

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