Educational Management at the Province and Local Levels

After the political change of 2062/063 BS (Bikram Sambat, the calendar used in Nepal), the people of Nepal voted to elect a Constituent Assembly. A Constituent Assembly is a body of elected representatives whose job is to write the country's constitution. The Constitution of Nepal prepared by this assembly defines Nepal as a federal democratic republic.

Before this constitution, Nepal had a unitary system of government, in which the main power to govern sits at the centre. The new constitution ended the unitary system and divided the country into 7 provinces and 753 local levels. So Nepal now has governments at three levels:

• The federal government: one government at the centre for the whole country.
• Province governments: each of the 7 provinces has its own government.
• Local governments: each of the 753 local levels has its own government.

Each of these three governments uses the powers that the constitution and the law give it, and at every level the government is run by representatives the people have elected. This is the system of government Nepal has adopted, and the management of education has been arranged to fit the same three levels.

In a federal structure, the work of education is not all done from one place. Each level has its own offices for education. At the centre, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology makes the plans and policies for developing education. Each of the seven provinces has a Ministry of Social Development and an Education Development Directorate. Every rural municipality, municipality, sub-metropolitan city and metropolitan city has its own education office.

The benefit of this structure is that people and offices close to the school also get to plan its education. To develop education in a village or town, plans and programmes are prepared at the school level, at the rural municipality or municipality level, and at the district level. Two of these plans matter most: the School Improvement Plan, made by each school, and the education plan made by each rural municipality or municipality.

Put simply, a SIP is a map of the future that a school draws for itself. It writes down what the school will do over the next few years, when it will do it and how. The plan is made mainly under the leadership of the school management and the school administration, with teachers, parents and elected local representatives taking part. Students are involved too, because they are the ones who gain most from the improvement.

It is called an improvement plan because it aims to improve the whole school, not just one part of it. The main areas a SIP covers are these:

• Staff: how many teachers and other staff the school has, and how many it needs.
• Student enrolment: ways to bring every child to school and increase enrolment.
• Quality of education: how to make students' learning and results better.
• Physical infrastructure: facilities such as classrooms, toilets, drinking water, a library and a laboratory.
• Budget: how much each task will cost and where the money will come from.
• Other areas: anything else the school needs.

For example, imagine a secondary school with no science laboratory, where some students drop out in grade 9 and there are not enough English teachers. Its SIP might plan to build a laboratory room in the first year, buy the equipment in the second year, meet the parents of students who drop out, and ask for an extra teacher. For each task the plan also states the time, the person responsible and the cost.

From first discussion to being put into action, a SIP goes through these stages:

• Step 1: The school management and school administration start the planning.
• Step 2: Teachers, parents, students, elected representatives and local organisations join the discussion.
• Step 3: Looking at staff, enrolment, quality, infrastructure, budget and other areas, they prepare a detailed action plan for five years or less.
• Step 4: The school management approves the plan formally.
• Step 5: The approved plan is sent to the rural municipality or municipality the school belongs to.
• Step 6: The rural municipality or municipality office and the district office help to make the plan succeed.

A SIP is the plan of one school; the education plan of a rural municipality or municipality covers every school in that whole local level. It is prepared by the education office of the rural municipality or municipality. Its main base is the SIPs that each school has made. The office also draws on the help of all stakeholders, both people and organisations, as well as educationists and others. A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in and a connection to education, such as parents, teachers and local organisations.

The plan covers large programmes for the schools in its area, from the overall development of education to raising the level of schools. These include:

• the overall development of education
• building and improving infrastructure
• staff, meaning the provision of teachers and other workers
• upgrading schools to a higher level

Once the plan is ready, it is passed by the village assembly or the municipal assembly. The passed plan is sent to the Education Development and Coordination Unit in the district, and it can also be sent to the province government when needed.

Suppose a municipality has 30 schools. Most of their SIPs say they need a computer class, and a few schools are short of teachers. The municipality's education office reads all these SIPs and makes one plan for the whole municipality: for example, to give every secondary school a computer class within five years and to move teachers to the schools that lack them. In this way the municipal plan takes on big tasks that no single school could manage alone.

The two plans are separate, but they are linked. The School Improvement Plan is the lower step and the municipal education plan is the step above it. Without the schools' SIPs, the education office could not know what each school really needs.

Plans for developing education are made and carried out at different levels so that education moves forward in an organised, planned way. Without a plan, effort gets scattered and nobody knows which task should come first. When plans are made at the school and municipal level, they reflect real local needs, because the teachers, parents and representatives there know their own schools' problems best.

When parents and the community help to make a plan, they feel the school belongs to them and help the plan succeed. As a student, you too can share your problems and ideas when your school prepares its SIP.