By Xinhua,
Kathmandu : Lack of adequate number of teachers has hit education quality in community schools in Nepal, The Kathmandu Post reported on Saturday.
According to latest statistics, over 50,000 teachers are needed in 36,110 community schools across the country.
Moreover, this does not include the number of teachers required for 168,000 children enrolled in primary level this academic year.
According to the latest statistics, altogether 4.51 million students are studying in primary level. The shortage of teachers is determined as per the student-teachers ratio set by the government as 42:1 in primary, 69:1 in lower secondary and 42:1 in secondary level.
According to statistics of the Department of Education (DoE), there are 80,176 permanent teachers and additional 18,211 teachers under relief quota teaching at primary level. Likewise, the number of permanent and those recruited under relief quota in lower secondary level is 694,537 and 16,204, respectively. Altogether 12,718 permanent and 2,940 relief quota teachers are currently employed at the secondary level.
Hari Prasad Lamsal, Deputy Director at DoE, was quoted by the daily as saying that they are gradually fulfilling teachers’ vacancies due to lack of adequate budget. He said vacancies of about 12,000 teachers were fulfilled last fiscal year ended in mid-July.
Joint Secretary Arjun Bhandari at Ministry of Education and Sports said they are making a demand of 20,000 teachers’ vacancies this fiscal year. However, Ministry of Finance has not given the nod to the demand yet citing budget constraint.