10-15% pvt schools sans legal documents

Bishnu Prasad Aryal
Kathmandu, May 8

Some 10 to 15 percent of the private (institutional) schools in the Kathmandu Valley are still running without registration to the concerned authorities.

There are 193 private schools in Bhaktapur, 274 in Lalitpur and 1,200 such schools in Kathmandu. According to the Education Act, primary schools are registered to the District Education Offices while lower secondary and secondary schools are registered to the Regional Education Directorate. Registration charges of primary, lower secondary and secondary levels are Rs 50,000, Rs 150,000 and Rs 200,000 respectively.

“We have found 10-15 percent of the private schools are operating without legal documents from the concerned authorities,” said Suprabhat Bhandary, member of the permanent monitoring body under the Ministry of Education (MoE). “About 50 percent of the private schools are yet to follow the legal systems,” said Bhandary, also the president of the Guardians’ Association Nepal.

The monitoring team comprising of departmental heads, guardians and representatives from private school organisations have been scrutinizing the schools presently. “As we cross-checked we found that some schools having license of primary are running lower secondary level, lower secondary schools running secondary schools and others filling up their forms for School Leaving Certificate exams from other schools,” Bhandary said.

On the one hand, private schools are blamed of commercialization. On the other, about half of them are running illegally. “Owners of the private schools are using luxurious cars while its teachers are less paid and guardians are high charged,” he said.

He said that the government should fund upto at least class eight for checking exploitation and bridging gap of the quality education between the private and government schools. “The government must take responsibility and ensure quality education. It will be better to allow the private institutions to run higher education,” he added.

Lilamani Paudel, acting chief of the District Education Office, Kathmandu, admitted that there were still some schools not registered to the concerned departments. “If they have applied for the permission, it will not be illegal,” said Paudel. “The trend of neglecting the laws has decreased compared to the last year though it was prevalent since long.”

Paudel said that the government took action against New Advance English School, Bagalamukhi last year for forcing the students to appear in the SLC exams without registration.

Bhandary, however, said that the implementation of the laws from the MoE was less effective. “The schools are violating the rules as they are backed by hidden powers,” he added. “It is the weakness of the ministry.”

Lakshya Bahadur KC, senior vice-president of the Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal conceded that the schools were running without legal permission. “I’ve seen many schools outside the Valley operating without any registration. Some schools in the valley also don’t have complete documents. This must be taken seriously,” he added. “The government should investigate into it and the schools also must be responsible to the state.”

This news article was published in THE HIMALAYAN TIMES on May 9, 2009.