Rural Municipality, Municipality and District Education Committees

A school does not stand alone. It sits in the middle of a community, the children of that community study in it, and the people of that community help it run. That is why the relationship between a school and society must be warm and close. The school administration has the job of running the school, but it cannot succeed on its own. It has to keep a friendly, trusting relationship with the people around it.

Every activity in a school needs the support and participation of society. Picture a school holding its annual day. Parents give their time, a local club lends a tent and chairs, and the ward office helps with the cost. Without the community, even a small event like this stays half done. To give schools this kind of support, several bodies are active in society:

• the rural municipality and municipality education committees
• the district education committee
• various non-governmental organisations
• community-based organisations

A school needs the steady support of these bodies. Each one keeps carrying out the duties it is responsible for, and that is how the school grows. Two of these bodies are official committees set up by law, and they are the subject of this lesson: the local education committee of a rural municipality or municipality, and the district education committee.

A school is a shared institution that represents its society. The castes, languages and cultures found in a community can all be seen clearly inside its school. Watch a school cultural programme and you may see one group performing a folk dance, another singing a regional song and a third reciting a poem in their mother tongue. That single stage tells you what kind of community the school belongs to.

Many bodies play an important part in making a school successful. Inside the school there are already the school administration and the School Management Committee. Beyond these, several other bodies give support, some directly and some indirectly, and all of them share one aim: to help the school. They include the district education committee, the local education committees and various organisations. Their main work is:

• preparing a budget and a programme every year
• setting aside a fixed amount of money for schools
• helping schools to develop

Not every body helps in the same way. The education committees deal with schools directly, while social organisations work through the government's education offices:

To see where the education committees are formed, first look at how the country is divided. Under the Constitution of Nepal, the country is divided into 7 provinces, 77 districts and 753 local levels. The 753 local levels fall into four groups:

• metropolitan cities
• sub-metropolitan cities
• municipalities
• rural municipalities

The eighth amendment to the Education Act, 2028 BS, made the rule that every rural municipality and municipality forms an education committee. Its job is to support the schools inside its area and to develop education there as a whole. It looks after the management, supervision and coordination of the schools that run within that local area. In a rural municipality it is called the rural municipality education committee, and in a municipality it is called the municipal education committee.

This committee is not made up of whoever happens to be interested. The law fixes who each seat is for and who chooses the person to fill it. The committee is made up like this:

• The chairperson of the rural municipality or the mayor of the municipality, or a person given that role: chairperson
• Two members of the rural municipality or municipality, chosen by that body, at least one of them a woman: members
• One of the chairpersons of School Management Committees in the area, nominated by the district education committee: member
• Three local social workers or well-wishers of education, nominated by the local education committee itself, including one Dalit and two women: members
• Two head teachers of community or private schools in the area, nominated by the rural municipality or municipality, at least one of them a woman: members
• One person with a disability, nominated by the local education committee to represent a school that runs special education, inclusive education or a resource class, or an institution that teaches people with disabilities: member
• The resource person for a rural municipality committee, or the school inspector for a municipal committee, one person: member secretary

Adding up the seats gives \( 1 + 2 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 11 \). So under the Act, every rural municipality and municipality has an education committee of 11 members. A committee formed this way serves for two years. When needed, a representative of the teachers' federation and head teachers are invited to its meetings as observers. Observers watch the meeting and can offer advice, but they are not counted among the 11 members.

Look at the seats together and a pattern appears. There is room for elected local leaders, for a School Management Committee chair who speaks for parents, for head teachers, for social workers, and for women, Dalits and people with disabilities. That way every part of the community has a voice in decisions about local schools.

The local education committee has these duties and powers:

• Making sure every child in the area receives basic education
• Running a school enrolment campaign every year in Baisakh, the first month of the Nepali year, and keeping a record of every child
• Helping schools draw up their education plans, then approving those plans and checking how they are carried out
• Making proper arrangements to enrol children who are poor, who have a disability or who have different abilities
• Monitoring and evaluating schools and helping them improve their quality
• Organising training and seminars for teachers and school staff
• Keeping a record of the schools' property, both movable and immovable
• Helping schools create a good learning environment
• Recommending teachers and staff for reward or punishment according to law, so that excellent work is rewarded
• Supporting schools in running extracurricular activities

These duties are easier to remember in four groups. The first group is about children: basic education for all, the Baisakh enrolment campaign and the enrolment of children who are left behind. The second is about quality: planning, monitoring and evaluation. The third is about teachers and staff: training, seminars and recommendations for reward or punishment. The fourth is about the school itself: records of property, a good learning environment and extracurricular activities.

Here is how this works in practice. During the enrolment campaign, the committee finds that a girl in one ward who cannot walk has never been to school. Its duty now is to get her enrolled in a school with a resource class and arrange a way for her to reach it. Recording every child, finding the ones who are missing and then arranging a place for them is how the committee makes sure no child is left out of education.

All 77 districts of Nepal have an Education Development and Coordination Unit and a district education committee. The district education committee helps supervise and develop the schools across the whole district. A local committee looks after its own rural municipality or municipality; the district committee looks at the whole district at once. Under the eighth amendment to the Education Act, 2028 BS, one is formed in every district to supervise and manage the schools there.

The district education committee is made up like this:

• The chief of the District Coordination Committee, or a person given that role: chairperson
• The Chief District Officer: member
• The secretary of the District Coordination Committee: member
• One chairperson of a community school's School Management Committee in the district, nominated by the district education committee: member
• One chairperson of a private school's School Management Committee in the district, nominated by the chief of the Education Development and Coordination Unit: member
• Three parents or educationists, nominated by the district education committee, including at least one Dalit and one woman: members
• The district chairperson of the Nepal Teachers' Federation: member
• The chief of the Education Development and Coordination Unit: member secretary

Counting the list gives \( 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 = 10 \) people. Members who are nominated to this committee serve for two years. The others, such as the Chief District Officer or the district chair of the teachers' federation, sit on the committee for as long as they hold that office. If a Chief District Officer is transferred and a new one arrives, the new officer automatically becomes the member.

The district education committee has these duties and powers:

• Preparing a district-level plan for education
• Encouraging rural municipalities and municipalities to give financial support to community schools
• Helping to hold examinations in the district in a dignified and fair environment
• Raising resources to improve the quality of education in the district
• Fixing the fee paid to the auditors who check the accounts of community schools
• Setting a minimum number of teacher posts for each class in community basic schools up to class 5, based on how hard the terrain is in remote districts and on the number of students in other districts; and sharing out and adjusting the teacher posts provided by the Government of Nepal to classes 6 to 8 of basic schools and to secondary schools according to subject
• Giving directions to School Management Committees

A teacher post is a teaching position that the government has approved and pays for. The rules for sharing out posts come in two kinds. Up to class 5, each class is guaranteed at least a minimum number of teachers. In mountain and other remote districts, villages are scattered and a school may have few pupils yet still need teachers, so there the difficulty of the terrain decides the number. In other districts the number of students decides it. From class 6 upwards, subjects are taught separately, so posts are shared out by subject, such as mathematics, science and English.