EDUCATION-NEPAL: Backlog in Teachers’ Appointment Exposes Weaknesses

By Damakant Jayshi Reprint | | Print |

Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, Aug 11 2003 (IPS) - Picture these statistics: More than 68 percent of the 170,389 students who took this year’s secondary-level leaving examinations in Nepal failed them. Likewise, there are some 40,000 vacancies in the public schools across this Himalayan kingdom.

But these do not complete the picture of the dismal state of public education in the country.

In one of the world’s poorest countries, it has taken the government eight years to publish the results of the teachers’ appointment examinations, aimed at filling the more than 14,000 vacancies that were recorded as existing at that time. Half of them are slots for primary-level teachers.

Now that the results have been coming out, it will take another four to five months for all the results – secondary, lower secondary and primary levels – to be published, the government announced.

Until Thursday last week, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) published a list of 604 teachers of the far-western region who are now deemed eligible to teach in secondary and lower secondary schools. There are more than 75,000 teachers in Nepal, up to the secondary level.

"It is an open secret that the politicians and ministers push for their own men as teachers," says Lokesh Saha, a primary school teacher of English in Baitadi, one of the remotest districts in Nepal. "Why should we be surprised then that so many students failed to clear the exams?"

Saha, who came to the capital nearly three weeks ago for a educational training course, had come to check the list of successful candidates that were put up by the TSC.

During the wait for the results of the teachers’ examination results, the vacancies have been filled by ‘temporary’ teachers, which does not help morale or the quality of teaching. Since temporary teachers man the vacancies, they cannot receive additional training.

"Teachers’ motivation level due to politicking and lack of training is very low and this reflects in the products (school graduates) they churn out every year,” Saha adds.

Overall, many Nepalis’ complaints about the public education drive those who can afford it to go to some 8,000 private schools in the country.

Politicking – screening, appointments, promotions and transfers are coloured by interference by politicians – is particularly intense in the countryside, where the need for more quality teachers is greatest.

The root of the current problem goes back to the mid-nineties, which critics say highlight a classic case of political interference whose consequences are still being felt today.

A former education minister in the 1995 Nepali Congress government, Govind Raj Joshi, had flouted the Public Service Commission guidelines, which provided that only 20 percent of additional applicants above the advertised figure can be called for interviews for teaching posts.

At the time, the ministry declared a huge number of candidates – 83,000 – all securing the passing mark it set of only 35 or above.

Many had alleged then and the anti-corruption body was petitioned too, that the low passing rate was set so that Joshi could accommodate more men from his home district of Tanahun in west Nepal.

For these actions, Joshi has been facing a probe by the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA).

Apart from politicking in the teachers’ appointment, there is rampant interference in their transfer as well. "Those with political clout stay in the district headquarters and those lacking it languish it in the rural areas for years," says Saha.

These structural weaknesses are exacerbated by the lack of preparedness of the teachers applying for jobs in public schools.

Some experts say that around 50 percent of teachers are underqualified. "Only about 15 percent of total primary teachers have completed ten months of training," Dr Bidynath Koirala, an education expert here, has said.

Even the TSC, which was formed in 1999 to replace teachers’ selection committees at the regional and district levels, has become a political tool. It has seen four chairpersons in the last four years.

Even its current chair, Uday Raj Soti, admits that there is political interference in the functioning of the commission. "The delay in publishing the results was (of teachers’ selection) caused by frequent changes in government, court cases and the CIAA’s directives," he points out.

Today, while the stipulated teacher-to-student ratio is 45:1, some classes in the heart of the capital Kathmandu, like Saraswati Secondary School, have more than 100, 80 or 90 students in Grades 7, 9 and 8 because of the shortage of teachers.

This year’s low rate of students passing the examinations for the secondary-level School Leaving Certificate (SLC) is thus not surprising – the annual pass rate has in fact been hovering a little over 30 percent for years now.

Soti concedes that even from the viewpoint of the teachers as job applicants, many of them have already lost opportunities after waiting for eight years to see if they get a slot at a public school. "It was great injustice to the teachers,” he says of the wait.

These teachers will be missing the grades and the money that would have accrued to them had the results been published on time.

Even if the government finally clears its appointment backlog, many applicants will not go back to school to teach in a country where the drop-out rate before the students reach Grade 1 is 14.5 percent – and the overall drop-out rate in public secondary schools is around 40 percent.

"We are aware of this possibility since some teachers are now teaching in colleges after acquiring education and some have changed their profession," TSC Chairman Soti says, adding that the replacement candidates would instead be appointed.

But the teachers’ commission still has to fill an additional 26,000 vacancies – and it has an ambitious plan to fill the vacancies by the end of the current fiscal year in mid-August 2004.

There are few takers. "Look at what happened to our results (eight examinations years ago). Is the TSC serious?" asks Saha.