Ministry of Social Development

A school in a village, a neighbourhood or a town does not run itself. Someone has to decide how many teachers it needs, arrange its examinations, keep its records and check whether the children are really learning. In Nepal, the work of running, managing and looking after schools is shared among different bodies at the federal, provincial and local levels. Together, these bodies make up the country's educational administration.

All the bodies connected with educational administration are led by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. Whatever body in Nepal deals with running education, its leadership goes back to this ministry.

Several bodies work at the central level. Three of them are placed directly under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology:

• the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development (CEHRD)
• the Curriculum Development Centre
• the Education Review Office, the centre that tests the quality of education

Four more bodies also work at the central level, and each one looks after the work of its own field:

• the National Examination Board
• the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT)
• the School Teachers' Records Office
• the Teacher Service Commission

Their names already tell you their fields. One is linked with the curriculum, one with examinations, one with technical and vocational training, one with teachers' records and one with teachers' service. Each of them handles its own field from the centre.

At the provincial level, the work of educational administration is done by the Ministry of Social Development. Inside this ministry there are branches that deal with educational administration. Alongside it, each province also has a Directorate of Education Development and education training centres.

At the district level there are Education Development and Coordination Units. These units run and coordinate tasks such as keeping teacher management records and conducting examinations.

At the local level, every rural municipality has a rural municipality education office and every municipality has a municipality education office. These offices run different programmes to manage and operate the schools in their own area. For your own school, this is the nearest education body of all.

Of all these bodies, two carry most of a province's education work: the Ministry of Social Development and the Directorate of Education Development. Each of them deserves a close look.

Under the Constitution of Nepal, the country follows a federal system of government and is divided into three levels: federal, provincial and local. As a result, Nepal has seven provinces. Each province has an executive and a legislature. The legislature is the provincial parliament, and the executive carries out the work of government. The executive of each province is known as the provincial government.

The Ministry of Social Development comes into being in a clear order:

• The chief minister is chosen from among the members of the provincial parliament who have a majority.
• Several ministries are formed under the chief minister.
• One of these ministries is the Ministry of Social Development.
• A member of the provincial parliament becomes the minister of this ministry.
• The ministry is staffed with the employees the provincial government decides it should have.

Notice that the word education is not in this ministry's name at all. Education is one part of a wider field called social development, and that field also covers health, social security, youth and sports. For all of these, the ministry does three kinds of work. It makes the policy, it puts the policy into practice, and then it monitors whether the work is being done properly.

The ministry's duties, responsibilities and powers related to education are these:

• preparing the policies and programmes for developing education throughout the province
• monitoring and evaluating the educational bodies running in the province
• preparing the foundations for higher education
• supporting the development work of educational institutions
• working to coordinate between the central government and the local governments

The first two duties go together. The ministry first decides how education is to be developed in the province, through policies and programmes, and then checks how the educational bodies in the province are doing. Monitoring means keeping a regular watch on the work while it goes on. Evaluating means judging how good the results turned out to be.

The third and fourth duties look ahead. Preparing the foundations for higher education means laying the groundwork so that study after school can grow in the province. Supporting educational institutions means helping schools and colleges develop and become better.

The fifth duty shows where the province stands. It sits between the central government above and the local governments below. Suppose the central government starts a new programme for schools, while it is the municipalities that actually run those schools. The province then coordinates the two, so that their work fits together and the programme reaches the classroom.

To make the development of education orderly and systematic, one Directorate of Education Development has been set up in each of Nepal's seven provinces. So there are seven directorates in the whole country, one for every province.

The executive head of a directorate is the director. Under the director's leadership, staff of different levels are arranged as the work requires. The directorate has been given the responsibility of carrying out, monitoring and directing the programmes run by two federal bodies: the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development.

The functions of the Directorate of Education Development are these:

• carrying out and monitoring the programmes run by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development
• preparing the records of the schools in its province and sending them to the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
• keeping the records of the teachers and staff of the schools under it
• collecting the problems found in schools in the province and sending them to the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to be solved
• helping the Education Development and Coordination Unit run educational programmes at the district level
• preparing a plan for education development in its province and submitting it to the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
• completing the tasks given to it by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and the provincial ministry

These seven functions are easier to remember in four groups. First, keeping records: records of the schools in the province, and records of the teachers and staff of the schools under the directorate. Second, sending information upward: school records, school problems and the plan for education development all go to the Centre for Education and Human Resource Development and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology. Third, supporting downward: helping the Education Development and Coordination Unit run programmes at the district level. Fourth, carrying out what it is given: the programmes and tasks set by the federal ministry, the centre and the provincial ministry.

The Ministry of Social Development and the Directorate of Education Development are both found in the province, but their jobs are different. The table below places them side by side.