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Education
in Nepal: Reports
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Nepal EDUCATION |
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Education
in Nepal: Decades of damage to education
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Deep
concern that the conflict is increasingly damaging the school system in
Nepal
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February
2, 2006, UN system in Nepal
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UN System expresses its deep concern that the conflict is increasingly
damaging the school system in Nepal. The safety of Nepalese children and
their right to education is jeopardized when schools become a focus of
the conflict. Progress made in the last 10 years to improve literacy and
to get more children into school is now under serious threat.
Schools
have been caught in the crossfire; have been used as barracks or shelter,
as well as for political purposes. |
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Their
playgrounds have been dug with trenches. Both sides have left explosive
devices near school premises, sometimes with fatal results to the children
who have picked them up. Teachers have been threatened, attacked and killed.
And children and teachers from school after school have been forcibly taken
away for political indoctrination, some never to return.
We
are now concerned about a new threat: the decision to locate 75 per cent
of polling stations for the February 8 municipal elections in schools.
It is a normal practice in many countries to use schools to house polling
booths. And in schools in countries at peace, there may be more litter
in the playground the next day, the desks and furniture may need to be
rearranged, but the school goes back to being a school.
In
Nepal, both the seven-party alliance and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
have said they will disrupt the municipal elections. If the election process
takes place in schools, this leaves schools vulnerable to the threat of
violence or damage. If schools become a place where the conflict is fought
out, then they are no longer safe as places of education.
Even
if the school itself is not damaged but there is violence on the premises,
the school can become a very stressful place for children afterwards. Already
in many areas, children and their parents are scared about going school.
In
order to function as effective places for education, schools need to be
safe, left free from the conflict and not politicised. The UN System asks
all Nepalis to remember the needs and rights of children and to keep schools
out of conflict.
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