The result of the local level election has already come. All the political parties and independent candidates who participated in the election have been elected by making their appeals, manifestos and commitment letters public. All of them have included education in their manifestos as well as other issues of development. In which there is an old rumor – community school reform, double or more than 20 percent investment in education and quality education etc.
However, no one has come up with a blueprint on how to increase the budget from 10-11 percent to 20 percent. No one has written on how to implement the commitments made in the declaration.
A student studying in class 8 in a school in Jajarkot district complained that he did not want to enroll in the school. There is a building but I have to study sitting on the grass. When we sit inside and read, we shout, it hurts the heads of the heads! The toilet is there, not in use. You have to go to the forest for defecation. Most of the time, there is no more than one subject. ‘
The parties that did not make a simple effort to address the practical problems at the school level copied and pasted the old thing and this time also made public the manifestos in the local level elections.
According to the Nepali Congress manifesto, ensuring quality education in community schools has been given priority. The Declaration commits to adopt policies and programs for quality education, discouraging the tradition of ‘rote and roar’, encouraging ‘thinking, asking and learning’ teaching traditions and practices from child development to secondary level, reducing school dropout rates and increasing sustainability.
From artificial intelligence to ‘maker space’ (maker space is a laboratory where students use what they read in a practical way) there is an ambitious plan. Learning-centric schools, provision of disability-friendly structures, production of motivated teachers, strong leadership and management in schools are among the priorities of the Congress.
Similarly, the CPN-UML will also provide easy access to school for children, solve the problem of dropping out of school, declare municipalities fully literate, construct library and playground structures in community schools, establish libraries, establish at least one technical secondary school in each municipality, and provide secondary education respectively. It has mentioned in its manifesto to make it free and compulsory.

In the previous local elections, the UML had committed to allocate 20 percent to ensure the right to education. However, even with his own government, the budget did not reach more than 11 percent. This time the coalition government has also allocated only 10.95 percent of the budget for education in the budget of 2079/80. Moreover, the UML had promised to provide free education up to class 12 by being more liberal than what is guaranteed by the constitution. The old manifesto has been copied and pasted into the new manifesto without an explanation as to why they could not be implemented.
No party is reviewing what commitments we made in the last election, what we did not fulfill, what else we could not do. Nor do the people question the commitments made in the election manifestos. Therefore, declarations are limited to false papers Similarly, the Janata Samajwadi Party has also made public its manifesto with commitment. From the transformation of the education system to the secondary school level, education is practically free and of high quality, ‘One Palika is a Model School’ and hostels are built to accommodate the students from far away.
The manifesto of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Socialist also reads the traditional rattan. Making community schools the center of attraction for student enrollment, providing free education while maintaining high quality in education up to secondary level. For the production of skilled technical manpower, emphasis has been laid on technical education as per the concept of ‘One Municipality, One Technical School’.
The CPN-Maoist did not even bother to make the manifesto public. Therefore, no one has mentioned how all the parties will do this, even if it will be done, how the resources will be managed for it, what will be the cornerstones of its implementation.
The slogans that the parties keep repeating every time are quality education, technical education, practical education and free and quality education. But no one has mentioned how to implement that question. Even though all the political parties have expressed their commitment to make the school a zone of peace, the school has become the place where most political interference takes place.
According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, about 80 percent of the students study in community schools. Therefore, unless the quality of education in community schools is improved, the slogans of prosperity, socialism and multi-party democracy will be limited to empty slogans. As in the past, all the parties are sharing sweet dreams with the people by making public the manifestos and appeals of their parties to win the trust of the people. The manifesto is a resolution to get us elected on the basis of what I or my party do or do.
No matter how many elections were held in 2046 BS, the parties made commitments in their manifestos. If the work had been done according to the commitment, perhaps the world today would have learned from Nepal and its parties how to work. But, ironically, the declarations were limited to paper. False assurances vanished. The election went to the grave with Sakina.
No party is reviewing what commitments we made in the last election, what we have fulfilled, what other reasons we have not been able to do. Nor do the people question the commitments made in the election manifestos. Therefore, declarations are limited to false papers.
Constitutionally, the responsibility of school level education management is under the local government. Although some local levels have made good efforts to improve education over the past five years, most local levels have practiced

There was no hope. Although some municipalities have improved the physical infrastructure of schools, matched teacher posts and appointed new teachers, this task has not won the trust of the general parents of the majority of the municipalities.
Many municipalities have hired hundreds of teachers to improve education. Parents and students have complained that those who indirectly helped to win the election have been appointed as teachers. The students themselves are questioning their teaching skills and abilities. Krishna, a parent of Shivalaya village in Jajarkot district, did not believe in the teaching skills of the newly appointed teacher. He complained, “Everyone hired our teachers, but they didn’t do well.”
What is needed now is for political parties to make public education reform a top priority in the true sense of the word. Necessary budget allocation, no political patronage for teachers, no politics in education by the parties. If we want to do politics, let the parties dare to present the fact that we have made such progress in the school where the Congress worked, where we have won the election, we have made such a change in what the UML has done, it is possible to change the way the Maoists have worked.
When a child development teacher from Rolpa did not fulfill his responsibility, the head of the education department of the concerned municipality said, “We need to talk to the chairman of the municipality about you.”
The head of Kalikot Shubhakalika village had said in one of the contexts that if any party hires teachers, we will not win the election, our politics will end, so we have to act as if we have not seen it. Due to electoral arithmetic, political parties have failed to make many unqualified teachers responsible for their profession and accountable for their children’s learning.
After reaching the village schools, the students who failed the course of many subjects failed the course by 15 to 25 percent and joined the final examination.

Now, after the final examination in the school, the time of admission campaign has started. However, most of the school teachers were not involved in the school enrollment campaign but were actively involved in the election campaign. Most of the teachers seemed to be active on social media in expressing their views, giving feedback and criticizing.
But somewhere at the beginning of the academic session, ‘These are our educational questions. How to proceed now? How to promote children’s learning? How to make the examination system practical? How to manage and mobilize resources? How to improve learning level? There is no discussion on how to improve the quality of teaching skills. The new academic session has already started but the textbooks have not arrived yet.
Naindra Bahadur Gurung, a teacher at a popular secondary school in Baglung, says, “It shows that most teachers do not do what they are supposed to do.” Gurung adds, “So we, the teachers who are trying to do better, have not been able to proudly say that we are teachers. Teachers are not able to make the teaching profession dignified. ‘
If we look at the level of learning of the children, in the learning test done in class 2 and 3 of some schools in Kalikot, Jajarkot and Dailekh districts, about 80 percent of the children could not read even simple sentences correctly. They could not solve even simple mathematical problems. It shows that students are not able to learn even the basic things they need to know.

Improvement is possible if political parties have a strong will to improve public education. We and our parties can also learn something from the reforms made by the Aam Aadmi Party of India. One of the main commitments of the Aam Aadmi Party in the 2015 elections was to transform government schools. The original slogan was ‘Education First’. After forming his party’s government, he invested the most in education. The government has invested Rs 6,208 crore in 2015/16 and Rs 15,815 crore in 2020, which is 24.32 percent of the total budget.
The budget allocated is mainly for improving physical infrastructure, teacher capacity development in new teaching methods, management of learning materials for students, modern labs, smart classrooms, e-modules, construction of Hryappi curriculum, school library, separate toilets for students, electricity, computer in all schools. Make arrangements etc.
Similarly, 200 teachers were trained by the world’s top education instructors and they were given the responsibility of 5 to 6 schools as mentor teachers. This helped in the educational support of the teacher in the classroom. During the five weeks of summer vacation, 36,000 teachers were trained and the learning was promoted. Similarly, a project called Challenge was launched to develop children’s reading and mathematical skills at primary level and to make children regular in school. This made a radical change in education possible in a short time.
What is needed now is for political parties to make public education reform a top priority in the true sense of the word. Necessary budget allocation, no political patronage for teachers, no politics in education by the parties. If we want to do politics, let the parties dare to present the fact that we have made so much progress in the school where the Congress has worked, where we have won the election, we have made such a change in what the UML has done, it has been possible to change the way the Maoists have worked. Commitment to make the supply of qualified and non-political teachers mandatory to make schools the hub of quality learning centers.
(The opinion presented is private. The author has nothing to do with the organization involved.)