The MoE, which has been receiving the largest pie of the total national budget every fiscal year, has allocated Rs 7 billion to make sure that students of every constituency in the country have easy access to science education in at least one higher secondary school. [break]
The MoE´s decision comes in the wake of the Tribhuvan University (TU) scrapping the Proficiency Certificate Level (PCL) from this academic year. The country´s oldest university had been able to accomplish its long overdue task only after the MoE assured major student unions--who adamantly opposed the scrapping of PCL--that it would help at least one school in all 240 constituencies set up science faculty.
According to Hari Prasad Lamsal, under secretary at the MoE, budget has already been allocated to equip one school in each constituency with science laboratories and to hire more teachers. "We can provide a maximum of Rs 2.4 million to every school selected under this program," Lamsal said.
Currently, across the country only some 60 community-based higher secondary schools have science faculties. All major student unions had exerted pressure on the MoE to not do away with PCL before making sure that every student wanting to study science at higher secondary level could do it without having to stay away from their homes.
In this fiscal year, the MoE has also allocated a certain amount for providing grants to schools that have been facing the shortage of teachers. According to Dr Lekhnath Poudel, under secretary at the MoE, the grant will be provided to those schools, which are selected for starting science faculty, as well.
"Usually, the amount of budget we allocate for higher education is relatively very low," Dr Poudel said. "With School Sector Reform Program (SSRP), which targets to develop basic and secondary level education simultaneously, coming into implementation, we are spending a significant amount for this."
In 1992, the TU had decided to phase out PCL and devote much of its strength for developing higher education. However, the country´s largest university´s decision fell in limbo for almost 18 years mainly owing to the government´s apathy. The MoE did not enhance community-based public higher secondary schools in a manner to accommodate all students after the phasing out of PCL.
In the third week of July last year, when an agreement between 13 student unions and the MoE was inked, the latter had also agreed to fix a ceiling on monthly fees being charged by private higher secondary schools, besides setting up science faculty in at least one school in all constituencies and support the schools to hire at least three teachers.
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