Every citizen shall have the right to get higher education according to his or her qualification, capacity and interest, upon fulfilling the conditions and standards referred to in the prevailing law. A citizen with disability shall also have the right to get education by means of special education.
Free and compulsory education of children of school going age is now a fundamental right in Nepal with the promulgation of Article 31 under 2015 Constitution and Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2018. This right is governed by law of the land and the parliament felt its imperative to enact fair corpus of clauses laying down the duties and responsibilities of the Central government, provincial governments and their affiliates. The Act, 2018 is an instrument of guarantee in a sense that the onus to ensure free and compulsory education lies on the state. However, this burden of state has no effect on the private institutions. Nor has the Act laid down stringent measures to control the monopoly of private actors in education.
This way, the Act has welcome provisions for the government schools and by the government schools. Unlike India, the Act does not slam collection of capitation fees. In India, the Act, 2009 prohibits institutions from carrying out any screening procedure of students or charging capitation fees. In doing so, the Act, 2018 falls short of adopting any measures to regulate the private school fees. So, balancing the autonomy of private institutions and public welfare functions have become a contentious issue.
2024-02-17 10Am Ram Sharma
