about quality in education

The Ministry of Education has been telling the public that there are 60,000 vacancies for teachers in schools. But there are more than 300,000 people with valid training certificates and teaching licenses waiting for an opportunity to serve as teachers. School education, in Nepal, remains dismal also because of unnecessary government intervention in educational establishments from time to time. Last year, the government decided to recognise ten months’ training after SLC as equivalent to grade 11. Moreover, they have also announced that ten months’ training after grade twelve will be considered equivalent to B.Ed first year. At a time when the undergraduate degrees in most countries across the globe require four years of study, the government seems ready to award B.Ed degree in two years’ time
Worse still, the training contents and methodology at the Education Training Centres (ETCs) are below par as com pared with the academic ones. This will only produce incompetent and unskilled teachers but also have an impact on the quality of students produced. In our own neighbouring countries, a primary school teacher requires a Bachelor’s degree plus a year or two years’ training. In our context, SLC pass-outs fulfil the minimum qualification for teachers of primary schools. The School Sector Reform programme envisages 12 years of schooling as minimum qualifications for the primary school teachers. On the pretext of upgrading the qualifications of teachers, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has made a wrong decision to equate the ten months’ training with academic degree.
As per the government provisions, aspiring teachers are required to sit for exams that certify them to be allowed to work as teachers. However, it is also true that the government has distributed teachers’ licences to all and sundry, without actually assessing the qualifications and performance of the candidates. It should be noted that only such candidates, who have undertaken trainings, are qualified to sit for teacher’s examinations. That means licensing examination is the second layer of quality control. Recently, Education Minister Renu Yadav announced that the Ministry of Education has decided to scrap the teachers’ licensing examinations. If implemented, this will be another erroneous and irresponsible move that will still degrade the educational system.
From an article of Dr. Mana Prasad Wagley