Propagating Education

Propagating Education

Khilendra Basnyat

Education has always been one of the most essential and vital elements in creating awareness to the people of all countries. It has become not only an instrument for enhancing awareness but has also served as a tool for social development.

It is the fundamental right of every human being to become educated. However, the eradication of illiteracy has become a challenging task for the governments of most countries.

According to a report published by the World Bank some years ago, a nation cannot progress in any field if the people are deprived of basic education. A report of the World Health organization has made it clear that many children in many countries have premature deaths because the majority of the parents are uneducated. According to another report of the same organization, the mortality rate of the children can be reduced by three fold if the literacy rate in these countries is increased.

It is often said literacy is to the brain what eye-sight is to the blind. However, illiteracy has become a formidable problem in many countries, especially in the developing and least developed ones. This is because without educated people, the task of improving the quality of life will be very difficult.

It is against this background that in recent times many countries have been spending huge amounts of money to bring about improvement in the field of education. International organizations such as UNESCO have also assisted in this endeavor. The efforts made by UNESCO can be highly appreciated, because it has been playing an active role in eradicating illiteracy in many countries.

Nepal has also considerably benefitted from UNESCO assistance. In fact, there is no denying that the assistance provided by this international organization has worked as a catalytic agent to bring about development in the educational field in our country.

Since the past few decades, Government has been placing more emphasis on increasing the literacy rate in the country. This is evident from the fact that prior to the introduction of the New Education Plan, the literacy rate of the country was about fourteen per cent, but now it has increased considerably.

Education has also become one of women’s greatest liberators in creating awareness among Nepalese women. Formerly, there were far less educational opportunities for women than there were for men. As a result, Nepalese women’s awareness increased neither in depth nor in magnitude.

Nepal’s system of educating women through Western style institutions started only a few decades ago. Prior to this, most of the Nepalese women were completely uneducated. The Ministry of Education has been providing the women with technical and vocational education by means of vocational schools.

As women constitute half the population of our country, substantial development in any field is virtually impossible without their active participation. Therefore, it is necessary to place emphasis on the propagation of female education in the hook and corner of the country so that the women might study and encourage others also in order to raise their standards of living and help to develop the area in which they reside.

Since the percentage of female children going to schools is less than that of males, emphasis should be placed on increasing the enrollment of girls in each school.

There are many uneducated adults in our country. Taking this fact into consideration, adult literacy classes have been conducted in different parts of the country.

There are different national and international organizations that are actively involved in promoting literacy programs. However, the drawing up plans or programs will be meaningless if we do not pay attention in implementing them. Since co-ordination is of paramount importance for getting the desired results, sustained efforts should be made to attain better results in the educational field.

In recent times, our country has laid stress on the need for formal education. By doing so, the number of schools as well as the enrollment of students will be increased. Since such a trend strains the limited resources of our country, it is also expedient to pay attention to finding an innovative and a low –cost method of solving the educational problem.