Equity and Inclusion in Education

Building on the successes of previous phases, World Education supported the Government of Nepal in the following objectives from 2019-2022:

1. Increase the capacity of 446 schools to provide quality early grade education, especially for the most disadvantaged children including those with disabilities and those who do not speak Nepali at home and in remote areas.
2. Strengthen government capacity to incorporate the non-formal Equivalency Framework in National Qualification Framework (NQF) and ensure school enrollment at age-appropriate levels through non-formal and formal classes. 
3. Build capacity of 80 local governments to legislate, budget, plan and monitor to improve equitable access to and quality of education programs.
4. Strengthen 200 schools provide education in emergencies and to mainstream disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and Schools as Zones of Peace (SZOP).

Under the Early Grade Learning component, World Education worked with the Provincial Education Training Centers and local governments to support inclusive EGL programming (EGR, EGM, mother tongue, and inclusion of children with disabilities)in marginalized communities in Madesh, Karnali, and Sudurpaschim province. In coordination with local NGO partners, World Education implemented EGL programming in 446 schools, which ranged from teacher professional development, mother tongue materials development and distribution, parent and community engagement, and capacity building for School Monitoring Committees (SMC) and Parent Teacher Associations (PTA).

Achievements under this component include:

• Trained 1,735 teachers to build their understanding of EGL, inclusive education, mother tongue instructive and multi-grade multi-level teaching.

• Using Bloom software to produce supplementary reading materials, World Education and its participants developed 597 mother tongue leveled supplementary reading materials (67 in Maithali, 54 in Bajika, 279 in Bajureli, 179 in Khas Nepali and 18 in Bhote languages). World Education finalized a selection of 147 books for printing and distribution to all project schools.

• Increased engagement of 11,385 parents in their children's education.

• Established 1,557 learning centers to conduct tole shikshya, which provided 25,384 students the opportunities to continue learning during the prolonged COVID related school closures.

Under the NFE component, World Education collaborated with other technical working committee members (including CEHRD, UNICEF and UNESCO) to move forward the non-formal equivalency agenda on the national level.

Achievements under this component include:

• The technical working committee developed test items for level 1, 2, and 3, of which, level 1 and 2 received testing.
• Developed 30 core NFE learning modules (10 modules per level).

World Education has a long-standing relationship with the Government of Nepal to support reforms related to EMIS upgrades, roll-out and use for data-driven planning at the federal, provincial, and local level, covering all 753 municipalities. Under the EMIS component, World Education conducted 34 EMIS workshops, training 399 local governments with 82 participants from the provincial level and 72 participants from the EDCU. World Education also supported 200 local governments to develop implementation plans in alignment with the National Equity Strategy and supported 80 lowest Equity Index local governments to develop their Education Sector Plans.

Other achievements under this component include:

• Upgraded features of the Grade 8 examination system on the EMIS platform.
• Integrated Out-of-School Children (OOSC) information to the EMIS platform.

Under the Education in Emergencies component, World Education worked closely with various governmental actors, UNICEF, INGOs, Organizations with Persons with Disabilities (OPD), and Nepal civil society to update SZOP guidelines and implement the SZOP framework in practice. In addition, World Education provided technical support to all provinces in coordination with the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) and Education Development Directorate (EDD) in response to COVID in the education sector.