Kathmandu.
Lately, due to the Corona epidemic, the number of small and professional people leaving the city and returning to the village has been increasing. Due to lack of income, the number of children moving from private schools to government schools is also increasing. Chairman of Private and Residential Schools Organization Nepal (PABSON), Tikaram Puri, said that the number of students in private schools has been increasing due to Corona.
He said that the number of students returning to the village is increasing day by day due to the closure of professions and businesses in the city and due to which the number of students in schools in urban areas including Kathmandu has decreased. He said that the number of school dropouts has increased after the ban in the second phase of the epidemic as compared to the first phase of the corona. He said that the number was increasing day by day and the number of students from other cities was also increasing.
According to Vidyanath Koirala, people who have daily wages, sidewalks and general jobs have decided not to return to the city because of Corona. Koirala, an educationist, says that after coming to a city where there is no city, one can run a diary by doing any small work.
He said that due to the recent epidemic of Corona and lack of a source of income, people have been returning to the village from the city to work. They also come to the city to teach. He says that the time has come to improve the quality of government schools in the village.
He also said that the attraction of students in government schools will increase if the materials required for various studies are available at the village level from the internet in the city. Along with the use of technology to improve education, teachers also need to be sensitive. He said that the government schools could be reformed if they could give up the politics of government schools and the tendency of government teachers to consider themselves big.
He said that it was necessary to create competition among the schools at the local level for the quality of education. In such a case, the school knows that there will be good education and bad education. Meanwhile, spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Deepak Sharma said that there are statistics that 200,000 students have dropped out of private schools and gone to government schools in the last two years.
He said that the number of students studying in government schools has been increasing recently due to various financial and other reasons. So far, the government has included the education sector in the budget with high importance. In the budget of the Fiscal Year 2078/79, a budget of Rs. 180.04 billion has been allocated by giving priority to education. The government has announced free textbooks for students up to class 12, a loan of up to Rs 2.5 million on the security of certificates, a loan of Rs 80,000 for the purchase of laptops and the provision of the internet to all community schools within two years.
Similarly, it has been announced that the enrollment rate at the basic level will be increased to 100 per cent in the coming academic session and free and compulsory education will be ensured. The government has allocated Rs 8.73 billion for the lunch program up to class 5. The government is also preparing to provide free internet service to all community schools within the next two years. One school, one health worker program has been announced to conduct regular health check-ups of students.
The government has also announced a free loan of Rs 80,000 and a SIM card for students to buy laptops. The information that this grant will be provided at one per cent is given through the budget. From Gorkhapatra
