The report made public on Thursday has lauded the achievement made in net enrolment rate, increased enrolment in pre-primary education, increase in the number of trained teachers and attaining the gender equality at all levels at schools. Currently, the net enrolment rate is around 96 percent, while the gender

parity in the basic education—up to grade eight—has reached 1.00, meaning the enrolment of boys and girls is equal. There used to be less than eight girls per 10 boys in the classroom in 1999. However, the initiative to provide scholarships to 50 percent of total girls and the increasing the number female teachers has led to impressive increment in girls’ enrolment, according to the report.

It has also said that there has been impressive progress in the school retention in past 14 years as the numbers of adolescents graduating from lower secondary schools in rural areas was just 27 percent in 2000, which has increased to 58 percent now. “A mark of the change over the decade is that the number of pupils per trained teacher decreased from 260:1 in 1999 to 28:1 in 2013, thanks to upgrading teacher qualifications,” read a statement issues by Unesco headquarters. The report has claimed that the number of out-of-school

children between nine to 12 years of age has decreased by half since 2000.

The report has evaluated the progress made in the education sector in 164 countries that adopted Dakar Framework of Action, which includes six goals to be achieved, in 2000. Education Minister Chitra Lekha Yadav had represented Nepal in the report launching ceremony in New York. The Nepali version of the report, however, will be published next month, according to Tapa Raj Pant, education chief at the Unesco office in Nepal. The report has also claimed that though Nepal hasn’t achieved its goal

related to adult literacy, it is the only country which is actually educating adults, rather than just waiting for educated young people to grow older.

The report findings regarding the pre-primary education, however, contradict with the government’s report. Though it has claimed that the number of students enrolled in pre-primary level increased almost eightfold from 11 percent in 1999 to 84 percent in 2013, the government report shows something else. According to a report published by the Department of Education, only 76.7 percent of children were enrolled in Early Childhood Education and Development within 2014 and just around 60 percent of students who get enrolled in grade one are from the

pre-primary background.

Likewise, the existing gender gap has also been reversed as the number of enrolled girls in the primary level was higher than that of the boys in 2012. However, in order to meet the millennium development goals, Nepal needs to ensure primary education for every child by 2015, which was short by 36 percent when the target was first set in 1999.