Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has directed the Ministry of Education to immediately deploy education officers to all 283  local units where the first phase of elections were held on May 14. 

The education officers will be tasked with overall management of school system up to grade 10. They will work as part of education division of local units from the beginning of the upcoming fiscal year.

Kedar Adhikari secretary at PMO on Wednesday said the MoE has been directed to deploy the staff immediately, so that they have enough time to plan their operation before the start of the new fiscal year.

The constitution has authorised the local units to develop their own curriculum, manage schools and staff and set own evaluation standard. 

The government has already allocated the education budget to the local units.

 “We will have to gradually dissolve district education offices. The sooner the local units start working, the sooner the dissolution process will be,” Adhikari said. The MoE has started collecting data of the education officers to facilitate their deployment. It has set the target of completing the deployment within a week. As the education officers have demanded one-level promotion before the deployment, the MoE is consulting in talks with the Ministry of General Administration on the subject. 

Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, secretary at  the MoE, said they were working as per the PMO’s directives and were trying to deploy the education officers as soon as possible. 

“We are aware that the transition will be quicker the sooner we deploy the staff,” he said.  

Shrestha added that the MoE was also developing a work plan to delegate the existing authorities of the district education offices to the local units.