Community Schools: Dismal return on investment

NEPALGUNJ, April 6: Government regularly pays salary to eight teachers appointed under government quota in Salyanibaag Primary School of Nepalgunj - 5. The school also gets budget for infrastructures, books and stationeries as well as hostel facilities for students.

The half century old school boasts of having well trained teachers and staffs. However, while it comes to giving result, it's in a sorry state.

"The school's education quality is not so good," said Akbar Ali Khan, member of the management committee of the school while admitting that his own kids study in a boarding school. In fact, none of the management committee members' children study at this school. Though expensive, boarding schools are everyone's choice.

Only children from poor family background study at this school, Budesh Jaiswal, principal of the school said. "Currently we have 136 kids. They are basically the children of labors," he said. Only poor families from Dalit, Muslim and Madhesi community are seen in the school.

Considering what the government has been spending for the education of those kids, they are supposed to receiving quality education at this institution. However, the situation is contrary to it and stakeholders don't stop from blaming political interference for it. Requesting anonymity, a member of the current management committee of the school said, "due to the political interference, like other government schools, our school has also not been able to get an apt management committee. And this is a major factor for the poor performance of the schools academics," he said.

However, president of the committee Keshab Prasad Manandhar, the school principal Jaiswal and teachers at the school put the blame on 'uneducated parents' for the poor academic performance of the students. They claim that students are not likely to perform well in academics if their parents are not much interested in studies. "We do have some genius students, too. But the reason behind average students' not performing well is their domestic environment. The kids who come here belong to poor class and their parents do not encourage them for education," said Sheela Pachhai, a teacher in the school.

Will power of stakeholders is an important aspect in the growth of the institution. And it seems lacking among the stakeholders of the school. To quote Khan again, "We all send our kids to boarding school. Instead of making our school better, we send our children to boarding schools. This is nothing more than lack of will power among stakeholders."

Nepal Rastriya Prathamik Vidhyalaya (NRPV) in Ranitalau at Nepalgunj - 8 has no different story. Locals said that the school used to have around 500 students in an academic year which were provided education by 10 skilled teachers. However, this 48-years-old primary school has dearth of students. Last year only 134 students enrolled out of which only 104 appeared in the final examination. These were taught by seven teachers.

"We have no dearth of teachers. But there is a bit of challenge to retain students at school," said Sakil Ahamad Ansari, the school's principal. "Only few children attend the school as parents, who are mostly from poor economic background, do not send them to school regularly." However, Ansari shared that the school has been mulling over plans to attract more students to the school. "We are discussing proposal to switch the medium of education to English from Nepali. This will help us in more children to the school, especially of parents who focus on providing children education in school and therefore send their children to boarding school, though they face hardship in affording fees."

Laxmi Manandhar, a teacher at NRPV informed that the maximum attendance of students at school at any time of the year is not more than 75 percent. "We have 60 percent of Muslim, 30 percent of Madhesi and 10 percent children from other communities. Most of them are from poor family background and their families are not much serious about their studies," she added.

Yuddha Sanskrit Secondary School in Charbahini is also in a sorry state. Lower enrollment of students, lack of quality education and poor management are some of its characteristics, too. While there are around 200 students in the school currently, the school's SLC result has been very discouraging for many years. "Our students find it difficult to pass SLC. That's true. Major reasons for it are the financially poor background of the students and lack of interest in parents for educating their wards," said Dilip Shreevastav, the school principal.

District Education Office states that there are a total of 382 community schools in Banke district to whose students it provides free books every year. Many students are provided scholarships under different heads. Some schools even run hostel facilities. However, almost all the government schools in the district complain of low attendance of students. Similarly, huge number of children drop out of school in primary or lower secondary levels - some opting for boarding schools and some forced into domestic work by families.