KATHMANDU, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Nepal's Education Department has handed over more than 12,000 government schools to the local communities in the past 10 years, the Department said Tuesday.
"Previously, it was agreed that the hand over would be 2,500 schools per year. Later, 1,200 schools every year were handed over to the local communities," Ganesh Poudel, the Department's Deputy Director told Xinhua.
"It was necessary to make the communities realize that they are the real owner of the schools in their localities," he said.
As of today, communities have owned 12,441 government schools, which is around one third of the total number of the government schools in operation.
Among all types of schools, the highest number of handover was that of the primary schools (Grade I to V) followed by lower secondary (Grade VI to VIII) and secondary (Grade IX and X) schools.
A total of 8,238 primary schools were handed over to communities, while the number of lower secondary and secondary schools were 2,846 and 1,357, respectively.
"With the implementation of the handover program, quality of the schools that are now owned by the communities has enhanced," Poudel said.
"Even after the handover, some sort of partnership still remains between the government and the communities, as the handover is only related to the management handover," he added.
The Department began handover program in 2002 with the objective of strengthening the role of communities in educating the children.
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