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Posted
on 09-Dec-01 02:34 AM
Why $106 million dollar Basic Primary Education Project failed?
Just like any big World Bank funded program with HMG, it failed to recognize the needs of the intended recipients of the services. There was much talk at the central level but nothing real happening at the recipient level worth the big money that was being invested. There are quite a lot of lessons to be learnt from this project. In its real sense, this project would have addressed the core issue that has given rise to the current Maoists problem had this project been implemented true to the letter. This project had the potential of uplifiting the national characterstics by raising the literacy rate. After all, it is only the education in the long term that will take a country to the higher level.
The BPEP was not meant to be a complicated project but the implementors made it so complicated that it was doomed to fail.
After seeing what is happening out in the field and talking to some of the intended recipients of the services, one of the big reasons of its failures is due to non- recognition of the community resisdents in the process of implementation of the project. For example, instead of loading the communities with the teachers imported from outside of the community of ethnic background with no knowledge of localities or even hardly any interest, the project should have FIRST invested in preparing the teachers from the local community itself. This would have been a good example for the community with sustainability for long term arrangement and practicing in real sense what the World Bank hypes: developing sustainability and local capacity.
In many areas, the villagers saw this project nothing but an employment project for teachers from Kathmandu and else where. The project should have taken an extensive motivational efforts to make the villagers understand the benefits of the project in overall and the benefits of sending their childern to school.
It was clear that the policy makers, planners and the implementors are the ones who first needed a primary education in planning and implemention of such a project.
Is anyone ever held accountable for it in HMG at the Ministry of Education? Will some heads roll at the Ministry or perhaps they have already been promoted for doing such a bad job .
The policy makers and planners in the education sectors have been playing this game of implementing failures (first with the new education plan and the saga continues even today..) but many of those big heads who messed up the education system in Nepal latermoved up in their posts,a few became Ambassodors or took up lucrative jobs in various international organisations. Perhaps a reward for failures?
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