Education is the key to sustainable development and to making future generations capable of succeeding in an age of competition. But in Nepal, an environment for sound basic education does not exist. Nepal’s literacy rate (40%) is one of the lowest in the world and is lower still in rural areas and among the female population.

Government schools, particularly in rural areas, are frequently inadequate, with inappropriate, poorly maintained physical facilities and teachers who are often ill-qualified or uncommitted.  As a result, students’ discipline and motivation is declining, and academic standards are deteriorating.

In response to these problems, private schools are mushrooming throughout Nepal, mostly in the cities. They offer better education, but charge high tuition, which poor parents cannot afford.  As a result, a two-class system of education is developing in Nepal, further increasing the gap between rich and poor, and between the rural areas and the cities. 

CCODER’s Community Schools are an innovative attempt to bridge this gap and to provide Quality Education to all children in the rural areas, with a special focus on the rural poor! and experiences have shown that the performance of the students in Community Schools is much better than that of Government School students.
 

Features of Community School

• Starts with nursery classes for children age four and above.

• English-medium schools. Thorough and rigorous curriculum, especially in the fields of math, science, and English, than government schools.

• Offers various extra-curricular activities, including games, sports, dances and cultural heritage activities.

• Small class size (almost half the size of government school classes).

• Motivated and dedicated teachers.

• Emphasize critical thinking and problem solving skills, to enable students to think for themselves and devise solutions to their own problems.

• Jointly managed by teachers, parents, community

Community Management

The most important difference between Community Schools and private schools is regarding the school management. Community Schools are jointly managed by the teachers, the parents, and a community organization. This organization is called Regional Community Development Committee (R-CDC). R-CDCs are federations of several village-level organizations, called Community Development Committees (CDCs). Each CDC is sending representatives to the “Community Education Committee” on the regional level. Together with the teachers and the parents, the Community Education Committee is responsible for the organization, supervision and control of all school matters. The joint management enables a strong interaction and mutual support between the parents, the teachers and the children. The Community Schools are thus managed with a maximum community participation and ownership, just like all other programs. 
                                                                     

Paying for  Quality Education
Quality Education is expensive.  Community Schools must construct and maintain proper facilities and must offer high salaries, in order to attract good teachers. In order to cover costs, Community Schools charge monthly fees.  Although these fees are quite modest and significantly lower than most private school tuition, they are still higher than some parents can pay.  To ensure that even the poorest children can attend Community Schools, CCODER offers full and partial scholarships.  Currently, about 20% of the students in Community Schools are receiving scholarships, and there is much more demand.  If additional scholarship money were available, many more parents would be able to send their children to schools.