School Education Sector Plan 2022/2023 Notes

 Moving Forward with Nepal's education plans:

 

The Government of Nepal has prepared an education sector plan covering the period 2016-2023, called the School Sector Development Plan (SSDP). The plan to move forward has been summarized below in the table. 

 

 Introduction 

•  Believes that education is a prerequisite to development.
•  Gives people the skill to participate in their communities, full potential and participation in society
• The plan is ensuring inclusive evidence-based quality education for all children in Nepal
• External challenges like COVID-19 have affected education plans during 2020 to 2021. 
•  Executed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
• SESP (School Education Sector Plan) is the one providing the roadmap
• Roadmap: strengthen institutional capacity, provide guidelines with constitutional guidelines for collaboration and co-existence.

 SESP needs to fulfill:

• Compulsory and free education up to basic/ secondary level (constitutionally tied)
• Implement 2019 National Education Policy
• Achieve the goal by UN’s SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) of inclusive education and lifelong learning by 2030
• Decentralization of education at the local level
• Have new relevance to the new knowledge that is being taught while also promotion national promise of “civilized, harmonious and prosperous country”

Problems and challenges:

• The ESA (Education Sector Analysis) found that girls in particular are not participating in continuous learning due to increase demand for care for siblings and engage in domestic work.
• Early Childhood Education Development (ECED) which was only accessible to urban areas are not being rolled out to all parts of the country.
• Only 76.6% have completed basic education. (Aged 5-12)
• Large proportion of out-of-school, dropouts, repeats are in the poorest regions who are vulnerable with disabilities and social stigmas.
• Education environment that is conducive to learning needs to be revised.
• Adequate, competent and motivated teachers impede the quality of learning.
• Local level lacks adequate human resource training, the capacity for education planning and strong leadership that focuses on the accountability of student’s learning. 

 

 Moving forward: “The vision”

To develop a capable, well-governed, accountable and competitive public school system in line with international standards.

Access and Participation	Equality and Inclusion	Quality and Relevance	Alternative pathways	Education in times of crisis	Governance, management, coordination
Provide textbook free of costs	Local level support for planning and budgeting.	Focus on improving current teaching materials	ICT equipment’s are provided	Awareness raising programs on resilience	Teacher support system is provided at local level
Allocate scholarships correctly	Scaled up targeted interventions to address inequality	Support system for teachers	Non-formal adult schools	School management will conduct safety checks	Non formal education and lifelong learning to be maintained
Midday nutritious meal in school till grade 8	Separate toilets for male and female	Development training for teachers	Provide national qualification certificate for work	Physical infrastructure will be “colour coded” for safety	Reporting and data system will be improved and strengthen
Catch-up policies due to education loss due to COVID	Menstrual hygiene management	Focus on student-teacher ratio		Management committee providing training for safety of schools	Leadership capacity maintained with appointment made for performance checks
	Disability needs addressed	Revise textbooks and learning activities		Psycho- counseling service to school	Improve educational information management systems
	Create resource centers to access information	Promote local language, culture, history and skills development		Disaster risk reduction committee will be formed	Monitoring, evaluating the effectiveness of programs
	School training teachers	Include the use of ICT for learning			Periodic evaluation of programs
	Retain students to live in hostels	Develop learning portals for continuous learning

 

Expected outcomes

Increase the quality of: care of student, (re)development of existing systems, educational services to support students, proper nutrition, sanitation (WASH), child protection, accountability of policies, improving institutional capacity, building on local level capacity, training of teachers, continuous learning development after school, IT focused and integration of services across all institution related to education.

 5. Crosscutting and cross-sectoral Themes

5.1 Curriculum and Evaluation

• Provided framework for holistic development of children. “Integrated curriculum”
• Devise curriculum that guides teacher to ensure children are ready to participate in the society
• Use of ICT as a toolkit
•  Provide curriculum that highlights the “meaningful citizen” while also preparing them for further academic career, all resulting in meaningful employment required by the market.
• Providing continuous feedback on both teachers and students on teaching and learning.
• Teachers needs to be properly trained to analyze the result of school-based assessments.

5.2 Teacher management and development

• The TSC (Teacher Service commission), is carried out by universities to conduct examination or teaching licenses, recommends candidate for appointment to vacant posts.
• Need to enact laws to allow those who are high-achievers in universities for entry into profession.
• For quality teachers: Qualifications, selection process, subject-specific knowledge and aptitude test towards the teaching profession.
• Once selected, there needs to be continuous development and support system.
• Options to transfer across regions. Transparent system of promotions, performance-based incentives and reward for accountability and attraction of intelligent people in the recruitment pool.
• Provide teachers professional support systems and networking opportunities.  
• Use retired teachers to provide support for mentioning at local levels.
• Make teaching an attractive profession.
• Manage existing systems of managing teachers, address unfair distribution of existing posts and enhance the quality. 

 

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Update: I just want to thank everyone for helping Aarambha Foundation for their continuous work. As well as you, for donating. 

"Last year in 2022, I asked for your donation towards the project called: "Rejuvenate “Lal Janakalyan”. It was part of Aarambha Foundation (Jhapa)- "Modular Montessori - The Hope Classroom". It was a practical progress towards addressing the "inequality gap" between private and community schools.

The project was focused on kid's education, aiming to strengthen the Quality of Education at Lal Janakalyan Primary School through resource optimization, capacity-building training for teachers and the introduction of modern teaching-learning practices.

Kids are happy, you are happy.
Let's share happiness."