Scholarships related laws yet to be implemented at local level

Kathmandu, Oct 26: The law that the public schools should provide ten percent scholarship has not come into implementation albeit six months have already elapsed since the law is in place.

The new academic calendar starts from Baisakh (mid-April). The education regulation has clearly stipulated that decision on scholarships entitled to various groups of the public schools should be made and submitted to education section of the concerned local level by Jestha 15 (May 29).

Most of the schools have not adhered to this significant legal provision. Even the local level which is constitutionally entrusted with the responsibility to manage education up to secondary school has not made any effort to implement the particular legal provision.

There is a work procedure in line with the Education Act and Regulation stipulating that the public schools should provide scholarship to genuine, disadvantaged, disabled, women, Dalit, nationalities, those injured in people’s movement and Madhes movement, disappeared and off-springs of martyr families. But the problem lies in the formation of school management committee at local level in accordance with the work procedure.

The school management committee has not been constituted in Gokarneswor municipality, adjacent to the federal capital city of Kathmandu, as six months have already passed following the start of the academic calendar.

The schools have not initiated legal process required to distribute scholarship. Bijaya Prasad Acharya, education section chief, said only 44 out of 87 public schools of the municipality have submitted scholarship distribution details to the local government.

It is found that the schools submitting the details have distributed scholarships based on the access rather not the adherence of process. The municipality has not been able to effectively monitor the process adopted by the schools in distributing scholarships.            

There is a provision that the coordinator of the municipal education committee would be the coordinator of the scholarship management committee at local level. Besides, other provisions of the work procedure are also not in effect.