KATHMANDU, Jan 3: Tussle between the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) has hindered the move to implement the Education Regulation.
In order to implement the Education Regulation, which is awaiting approval from the Ministry of Finance, an additional Rs 27 billion is needed annually, according to MoE sources. However, the MoF has estimated an additional amount Rs 65 billion needed to implement the regulation and is reluctant to release such a huge amount.
“As a result, the MoF has not approved the draft of Education Regulation due to additional financial burden,” said Dr Hari Prasad Lamsal, spokesman at the MoE. “The process of implementing the regulation will not go ahead until the MoF approves the draft,” he added.
The government has allocated Rs 116 billion for the education sector in the current fiscal year. The final draft of the Education Regulation, made to divulge details of the eighth amendment to the Education Act 2016 for its implementation, was submitted about a month ago to the MoF. The Act was implemented seven months ago.
The new education regulation has proposed adding about 30,000 teachers for schools including child development centers, which are considered as the pre-primary schools.
The government has allocated only around 12 percent of the total budget for the education sector for this year despite pledging to allocate 20 percent of total budget for the education sector, said Suprabhat Bhandari, president of the Guardians' Association Nepal. “If the state feels its responsibility to improve the quality of education, the budget allocation for education should be increased to 20 percent,” he added.
The draft of the Education Regulation has different provisions including grades 0-8 as basic/elementary education, grades 9-12 as secondary education, private schools to pay government scale salary to teachers, free secondary education, transfer of school teachers among others.
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