Allocation to education drops to 11% from 15% in a decade
Kathmandu, May 23
One of the largest challenges Nepali education sector facing is declining
budget allocation in recent years.
Budget allocation to the education sector has witnessed a sharp drop in
the last decade – it came down from 15.02 per cent in the Fiscal Year 2014/15
to 10.95 per cent in 2024/25, concluded a study on the Gender Responsive Budget
(GRB) conducted by Action Aid International.
On the contrary, according to the Classification of the Functions of
Government, the share of public service type expenditure rose significantly
from 32.76 per cent in 2014/15 to 44.49 per cent in 2018/19.
The study led by Dr. Menuka Karki was published at a programme in
Kathmandu on Friday.
Recommended benchmark for budget allocation in education is 20 per cent.
The study found that while more than half of the budget responding to
gender is called directly responsive, most local government spending on
education is simply gender-neutral.
It also concluded that provincial disparities are extremely high in
education sector. The SEE results for 2022 and 2023 show a stark contrast
between Bagmati and Karnali provinces.
In Bagmati, 47.44 per cent of students achieved a GPA between 3.6 and 4
while only 1.18 per cent of students in Karnali reached this GPA range, read
the report.
Similarly, the institutional schools have a higher number of teachers
per school compared to community schools. "In 2023, out of 36,032 schools,
75.9 per cent were community schools that were employing 63 per cent of all
teachers. But institutional schools which make up to 20.5 per cent of all
schools, employ 36 per cent of the total teachers," the report said.
According to it, community schools face increasing enrollments compared
to institutional schools up-to secondary level. However, institutional schools
witness a slight increase in enrollment at the higher secondary level (class 11
and 12) compared to class 9 and 10. "This is driven by the availability of
specialised subjects like science and management, which are more commonly
offered in institutional schools up to secondary level."
Citing the budget allocation for 2021/22, Dr. Karki said that although
about 8.64 per cent of education expenditures were classified directly
supportive of women, 91 per cent as indirectly supportive and 0.5 per cent as
gender-neutral, a deeper analysis showed that the classifications are
inconsistent and often ad hoc, relying on subjective central-level estimates
rather than systematic scoring mechanisms.
She suggested more systematic and transparent process to ensure
meaningful gender responsiveness in education budgets.
Local levels' budget is largely gender-neutral
Speaking on the occasion, Economist Dr. Dilli Raj Khanal, said that the
overall budget allocation trend in education is disappointing.
"Very limited budget is directly gender responsive. In 2023/24,
only 8.83 per cent of the local level budget is directly gender responsive
while above 76 per cent is gender-neutral," he said.
Dr. Khanal suggested for a legal framework for the GRB - "This will
lead to integrate it more forcefully in both planning and fiscal system of all
governments."
According to him, simply allocating funds is not enough, a
gender-responsive decision-making process is essential for effectively
addressing gender inequality. The GRB process in Nepal needs to be more
focused, data-driven, and empirically based for its impact on gender equality
that could also ensure achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 5 - achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
The study also
pointed to the need for alternative arrangement through budgetary provision to
address the scarcity of teachers due to maternity leave by female teachers.
Need for
enhancing women's role in development
Speakers of the programme demanded more resource allocation to gender
and promotion of gender equity by enhancing women's role in development process.
Ammar Bahadur Thapa, Chairperson of Education, Health and IT Committee
of the House of Representatives, said that the lawmakers should be sensitised
on the issues and agenda of the GRB to make it more effective and result-oriented.
Former Minister Rekha Sharma said that the government need to give
priority to the holistic development of education. "We are more focused on
infrastructure and hardware development in education sector while human
development and quality issues have taken a back seat. This is
unfortunate," she said.
The GRB system was introduced in Nepal by the Ministry of Finance
through the budget of Fiscal Year 2007/08 but, still, gender budget indicators
are not embedded in key planning frameworks like the Annual Strategic
Implementation Plan or Mid-Term Expenditure Framework which has limited their
integration into programme designs.
The GRB has five indicators with each of them carrying 20 per cent share.
They are: participation of women in plan formulation and implementation, empowerment
of women, benefits for women in programme and certainty in control including
programmes for other target groups, increasing women's employment and income
generation, and qualitative improvement in the use of women's time and
reduction in workload.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 24 May 2025.
No comments:
Post a Comment