The restructuring of the education sector in Nepal could be now executed with the Legislature-Parliament unanimously passing the Education (Eighth Amendment) Bill- 2072 BS after an untiring effort of six years.
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The newly passed Bill has also addressed the issues of management of teachers besides incorporating higher secondary school level to school education unlike its traditional three-tier sixteen-year education system.
With an objective to revamp the education sector in the country, the newly passed Bill has accredited Bal Siksha to Class 8 as the primary education while class 9- class 12 has been defined as the secondary level education.
Earlier, education from class 1 to 5 was recognized as the Primary level, 6-8 as lower secondary level, class 9-10 as the secondary level and 11-12 as the higher secondary level.
Now onwards, the School Leaving Certificate exam will be held at class 12 instead of class 10 until recently. For this, the existing Higher Secondary Education Board will be merged with the Education Ministry and will be dissolved into the National Examination Board chaired by the Minister for Education.
In the new system, for the technical and vocational stream, secondary level of education has been determined for class 9-13.
Another highlight of the new Bill is that the chairman of the school management committee will be selected from the committee members. This is to discourage political appointment for the same position.
The new constitution ensures free education up to secondary level. The new Bill has however clarified that it is applicable to the community schools announced free education up to the secondary level.
Expressing his happiness over the introduction of the amended Bill, Minister for Education, Giriraj Mani Pokharel said that the passed Act would be a milestone in revamping the education system in the country.
Acknowledging the importance of the provisions that bar school teachers from becoming a member of any political party and seek management of 15,373 temporary teachers, he pledged to come out to implement the bill with its endorsement from the President.
Educationalist Dr Bidyanath Koirala termed the endorsement of the bill a positive step in carrying out reforms in the structure of education and thanked former and sitting education ministers for their role in the process.RSS
