The School Sector Reform Plan and the School Sector Development Plan

Nepal's Basic and Primary Education Project ran in two phases. When the second phase ended, a big question had to be answered: how should this work be carried forward? The Government of Nepal, the Ministry of Education and the donor agencies held wide discussions about it. They made a serious review of what the project had achieved. The review reached a clear conclusion. The project should be revised, made broader and more focused on results, and run across the whole country. Following that conclusion, the School Sector Reform Project (SSRP) was carried out from 2061 to 2071 BS.

Many partners supported the new project. The partners of the earlier project stayed on, and Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark also gave financial help. The biggest change, however, was in how far the project reached. The earlier project had centred on primary schools. This one did not stop at primary school. It set out to improve the quality of education across the whole school level, from class 1 to class 10.

The reform project set itself seven aims. Read them carefully. Most of them use words such as 100 per cent, every, or minimum, which means each one could be measured and the project's success could be checked.

• (a) Raise literacy until it reaches 100 per cent.
• (b) Make every school teacher a trained teacher.
• (c) Discourage students from dropping out of school.
• (d) Bring student enrolment in school up to 100 per cent.
• (e) Bring the percentage of students who fail down to a minimum.
• (f) Raise the pass percentage of the SLC examination held at the end of class 10.
• (g) Develop the physical infrastructure of schools.

To meet these aims the project worked together with the Government of Nepal. Programmes that were already running were not stopped. They were continued. The main work and achievements of the project were these:

• Non-formal education was widened to spread literacy.
• Teachers were trained through the Educational Human Resource Development Centre.
• Enrolment campaigns were run, and the number of students joining school kept rising.
• Resource centres monitored schools and helped with the examination system and school management.
• Classroom teaching was made student-friendly, and examinations up to class 8 were run under a liberal evaluation system.
• Special programmes for students who were leaving school helped to stop dropouts.
• More than seven hundred thousand young people and adults gained literacy and skills.
• 1050 child development centres were set up and run.
• Schools were developed as institutions, and mother tongues were used in schools.
• Improvement of school infrastructure was continued.

Matching each aim with what was done shows how the project worked. The aim of full enrolment was met with enrolment campaigns. The aim of fewer dropouts was met with special programmes. The aim of training every teacher was met through the Educational Human Resource Development Centre. The aim of full literacy was met with non-formal education and programmes for young people and adults.

The Government of Nepal had put the School Sector Reform Plan into practice to make sure everyone had fair access to school education and to raise its quality. To make those gains lasting, to keep the good work in schools going and to add new programmes, another plan was drawn up. This is the School Sector Development Plan (SSDP). It is a seven-year plan that runs from Shrawan 2073 BS to Asar 2080 BS, that is, from July 2016 to July 2023.

For the first five years, Shrawan 2073 to Asar 2078 BS (2016 to 2021 AD), an action plan with resources was prepared. This means the plan stated not only what would be done but also what means would be needed to do it. The plan was drafted under the leadership of the Ministry of Education using a participatory method, so many groups had a say in shaping it, not just a few officials.

The plan is tied to Nepal's bigger national targets. It adopted the national vision of raising Nepal to the status of a developing country by 2079 BS (2022 AD). It was also seen as an important means of meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and turning Nepal into a middle-income country by 2087 BS (2030 AD).

The plan did not start from nothing. Its main guides were past achievements, the lessons learnt, and the combined programmes of these three earlier efforts:

• The National Plan of Action for Education for All (2001 to 2015 AD)
• The Education for All programme (2004 to 2009 AD)
• The School Sector Reform Programme (2009 to 2016 AD)

The purpose of the Development Plan was to carry out the aims already set in the Reform Plan, and to do it more effectively. So the new plan did not throw away the old plan's work. It made that work stronger. It aimed to make the basic level of school compulsory and free, and to run the secondary level effectively.

For this, the main work of the plan centres on the secondary level:

• Changing the secondary level curriculum
• Improving the examination system
• Improving teacher management
• Improving and managing physical infrastructure

When the plan's goal was set, the country's coming federal structure was kept in mind. Nepali society is diverse, and people's needs differ from place to place. The goal was shaped to fit these real conditions.

This goal is about everyday life. Being able to check your change when shopping, read and understand a notice or a form, and manage your own work are the kinds of ability it has in mind. The plan also stresses reducing the inequality that exists in society, by building people's abilities through steady and inclusive efforts that feed the country's social and economic development.

To reach its goal, the plan set five objectives:

• (a) Ensure fair access, participation and learning achievement for all, by reducing discrimination against communities that have fallen behind in the education system, especially discrimination between groups.
• (b) Ensure better learning for students by making the learning environment, curriculum, teaching and learning materials (including textbooks), methods, assessment and examinations more relevant and of higher quality.
• (c) Set minimum standards for the learning environment and teaching methods that everyone accepts, and make the school sector answerable to local government by strengthening good governance and management skills.
• (d) Restructure the education sector politically and administratively to suit identified needs and the federal structure, and ensure lasting, sound financial management based on partnership between the federal, provincial and local levels.
• (e) Keep schools safe from conflict by improving disaster management at school level and cooperation and goodwill among schools, students, teachers and the community, and bring broad school safety and disaster risk reduction education into the mainstream.

The Constitution of Nepal guarantees free and compulsory basic education for all, and free secondary education. To keep that promise, the way the education sector is managed and the way its services reach people had to be reviewed and revised. Because the Constitution gave local bodies more authority, the role of the School Management Committee had to be rethought. The eighth amendment of the Education Act gave further strength to structural and functional reform.

In this situation the Development Plan took the School Sector Reform Programme as its starting point. It set out to protect what had been gained and to keep raising quality and widening access. It placed special weight on removing unequal access faced by economically and socially disadvantaged communities in remote areas and by children with disabilities.

The School Sector Development Plan has had to face two main kinds of challenge:

• Learning from the lessons the 2072 BS earthquake taught about school safety and the need to reduce disaster risk, by putting up new buildings and repairing damaged ones.
• Reforming and revising the education system to suit the country's federal structure.

The exact shape of the reforms needed for the federal structure was expected to become clear only one year after the plan began. These reform programmes stay among the government's priorities. The plan also took into account the period of transition in managing educational services, the time in between when the old system was giving way to the new federal one.

The Development Plan is the latest stage of a long journey. Each time a project succeeded, the next one was built on it. The table shows the chain in order.

One thing is clear from this journey. School improvement in Nepal did not happen in one step. Work that began in a few schools of Seti zone spread step by step to schools from class 1 to class 10 across the country, and it is now tied to the Constitution and the federal structure.