Need To Impart Right Education

Yug Bahadur

The education system is already bad in our country, but with trend to have two styles of education, one section has suffered in the worst way. Imagine, even in Kathmandu where there are more than a dozen public schools, very few students enrol in these schools which are considered inferior. It can virtually be said that there are two class systems here. For the rich they have many options, including the present trend of sending their children abroad even for lower level studies or admitting them to expensive schools within the country, but for the poor, there is no option except to send their children to public schools, provided that they are nearby the places in which they live.

Waste of investment 

Millions of rupees are being poured into the education sector, but it goes mainly in meeting the overhead costs or paying the salaries of very incompetent and untrained teachers. In the past there were some reputed schools within Kathmandu and students proudly claimed which school they belonged to. But this swiftly changed with the trend of sending young children believing they would get better education just because of the names of the schools which carried ‘a boarding’ school tag.

A long time back, only children from high class families were allowed to study in schools. This was in the dictatorial Rana days when even the most basic rights of the common people were curtailed. As the country steadily started to open up after the dictatorial rule, schools started opening in remote villages as well. But when again the dictatorial Panchayat system was imposed in the country, the teachers became more of a kind of political activist rather than pure teachers. Some decades later the fashion of ‘boarding’ schools also started. 

While there may not have been so much politics in these privately run ‘boarding’ schools, the teachers were still unqualified and the so called schools hardly had any physical infrastructure for real schools to be housed. The schools were considered better just if they charged higher fees. There were only a few schools with proper playgrounds, bright and airy classrooms and all such physical needs that must be there to ensure a good learning environment. There were even one or two crowded small rooms, which were proudly called ‘English medium boarding schools’. 

It is also astounding why even these poorest of schools make it compulsory for students to wear ties, when they may not have enough to buy a decent copy or pencils. In fact, even students in far-flung villages have to wear ties, just to prove to the society that they study in a ‘boarding school’. It would have been alright if the teachers were well trained and they could impart good education to the younger pupils. But that would be too much to expect, just the fact that some persons spoke good in English was considered good enough to be good teachers, no matter how much they may know about shaping young minds or the subject they taught. 

The huge funds donated or given as loans by organisations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund among others, must be used for good planning and purposes and not spent on unwanted infrastructure or trips abroad only. Still, it is good that the opportunity to read, write and learn new things reached the nooks and corners of the country, forget the urban areas. But like the mismanagement in most sectors, the part of monitoring whether schools were following the regulations of the government authorities were being carried out or not is questionable. It can be vouched by many guardians that the schools are fleecing money and not providing up-to-date learning.

Now to come to the present trend, some really upscale schools have been established nearby Kathmandu. It is said they impart better education and give more avenues for students to pursue their future career at which they show more interests. There was a time when students were compelled to study whatever subjects that were available and mostly they were the same. This has changed and it has turned upside down the style of higher education. This can be taken as step forward as now Nepalis can study in virtually all parts of the world with their young counterparts.

 I also don’t believe in the old system where a brilliant person in one subject failed in the entire school examination just because he or she was weak in one subject. It might be too late when the real talents of such a person in found. But the change of lifestyle, from talking to inter-acting with friends and the attitude towards the society as a whole in not so pleasing, especially for guardians who grew up in a strict environment with little technology to help them study or to pass their time feel. This swift advancement in technology is still debatable, but our own youngsters, they cannot listen to one word against gadgets that have become their friends and soul mates.

Expensive education 

Another problem that faces guardians and many an ageing parent is the high cost of education in the reputed schools which do have basic physical infrastructure and better choice of subjects and more trained teachers but they are also costly.  Also the huge amount of money and hassles one has to be burdened with if one sends one’s children abroad for education whether high or low is there. A big blow to the nation is the trend of young skilled hands wishing to go outside their country and work in those places. 

There is no doubt there are better opportunities and better salaries, but home is home, where you’re loved ones, that also ageing ones live and one’s country has to also be built and not forgotten as another impoverished corner of the world. Maybe better minds and people with newer thoughts can decide better on this, but if our education is carved in two halves in this way, we will neither be educated well, nor will our country develop.

(Yug Bahadur is a freelance writer)