Schools asked to use uniform register to curb absenteeism

KATHMANDU, April 26: The Department of Education (DoE) has instructed all public schools to use standard register book for students´ roll-call from this new academic session.



Hari Prasad Bashyal, Director of Administration Division at the DoE, has instructed all 75 District Education Offices (DEOs) to make it mandatory for all public schools to use similar attendance register instead of varied ones.[break]



Until the last academic session, all public schools were using register books of any kind. However, with the beginning of the new session, the DoE has circulated sample copies of the new attendance register to all DEOs. The DEOs have distributed these copies among local printing presses for printing and supplying registers to schools in their areas.



However, the rationale behind introducing the standard register book beyond ensuring uniformity. The DoE primarily aims to compile accurate statistics of students across the country and keep a track record of students and their inabilities to attend the classes regularly.



Tuk Raj Adhikari, under secretary at the DoE, says, “It will enable us to analyze why students remain absent from their classes and, most importantly, help us formulate future policies to curb students´ absenteeism.”



The new register book has space for class teachers to mention why a particular students is absent. “We have classified absenteeism under four categories: illnesses, family problems, festival celebrations and unfinished homework,” Adhikari said. “That will help us find out why students mostly skip classes.”



The new register book will also help to identify the kinds of health problems students mostly suffer from. “We have instructed class teachers to ask students the reason for their not feeling well,” Adhikari said. “If a student´s complain is genuine, he will be referred to a nearby health post or hospital.”



The DoE made the uniform attendance registers mandatory only after having successfully introduced them in two districts -- Sindhuplachok and Syangja -- for two consecutive years beginning 2008. In these two districts, the DoE has also equipped all public schools with first-aid boxes in coordination with the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP).



The DoE aims to provide first-aid boxes to all schools in 20 districts in the next five years with the help of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JAICA).

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