Why owners of private schools are opposing proposed Education Bill

Kathmandu, Aug. 10

The owners of the private and boarding schools have been putting their effort to persuade the government and policymakers to not go ahead with the proposed Education Bill. Reminding the government of their immense contribution to the country’s education sector with Rs. 500 billion in investment, they have even threatened to launch protest programmes if their demand goes unheeded. 

While they don’t want to lose their private ownership in schools, the constitution of the country has provisions against commercial education.

The proposed School Education Bill, which will replace the earlier law after more than five decades if passed, has left private school operators worried because of its provision to bring and operate them as trusts.

As per the provisions proposed in the bill, the private schools should be mandatorily converted into a 'trust (guthi) model'. Although it will be a private trust, there are high chances that it would later be converted again into a 'public trust', further weakening the rights and powers of the private school owners.

According to the Trust Act 1977, if the trustee(s) doesn’t run a trust as per the rule and misappropriates its funds and properties, the Nepal Trust could take over the institution's management.

According to Kamal Gyawali, Joint Secretary of Private and Boarding School Organisation Nepal (PABSON)'s Tarkeshwor Committee, the new law will end private ownership and local government will have greater rights to have their say in the schools’ day-to-day affairs if the proposed law is implemented as it is.

Private school owners are also apprehensive about their position in school management after the institution is converted into a trust. Since the institution would be not-for-profit, they cannot distribute the profits to their shareholders.

"The government should have a rule to motivate the private schools to convert into an 'educational trust' but it has abruptly proposed a provision for mandatory conversion to public trust within five years. This is against the spirit of the constitution and is anti-democratic, impractical and unjust," three organisations of private schools’ associations said in a statement a couple of days earlier.

 

Constitution promises free education

This provision will bring the school fee drastically down. Education experts said that this is what should be the aim of the state to fulfil the constitutional provision.

Nepal's Constitution maintains that every citizen shall have the right to access basic education which would be compulsory and free while they will be entitled to free education up to the secondary level from the state.

Likewise, in the 'Policies of the State', the constitution has a provision to make the private sector’s investment in education service-oriented by regulating and managing such investment, while enhancing the state's investment in the education sector. A clause in Article 51(h)3 also promises to make higher education easy, qualitative, accessible and free gradually.

 

Education shouldn't be commercial

"The provisions in the proposed bill are directed by the constitution. Education should not be commercial. Even the richest and capitalist countries have been offering free basic education," said Professor Dr. Bal Chandra Luitel, Dean of School of Education at Kathmandu University.

According to him, Nepal's model to run school education has miserably failed and it needs to be changed. Therefore, the provisions in the proposed law should be implemented immediately.

Dr. Luitel argued that if education in private schools is good, the demands of the private schools are appropriate and if it is so, the constitution should be amended.

However, he underscored the immediate need of strengthening the public school management system in order to make public schools more competitive and market-oriented.

Earlier, Medical Education Act, 2018 had also imposed a new provision to make all medical education institutions non-profit and service-oriented after a decade following the implementation of the law.

 

20.5 per cent private schools

There are 36,032 schools in Nepal by the end of the last fiscal year. Of them, 27,343 are community schools and 7373 are private while 1, 316 are traditional or religious schools, according to the Economic Survey of Fiscal Year 2022/23 published by the Ministry of Finance.

About 1,664 schools were added to the system across the country last year alone. The private schools make 20.5 per cent in terms of their shares in the overall number of educational institutions.

Likewise, of the 40,656 Early Childhood Development (ECD) Centres, 6,894 are run by the private sector.

According to the National Statistics Office, the education sector is expected to make 8.22 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product of the country in 2022/23 which is up by 0.11 perr cent compared to FY 2021/22.  

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 11 August 2023.