So, the good news is that the aid agencies are harmonizing their effort to better education sector in Nepal. Despite my skepticism about the effectiveness of certain kind of donor funded projects, the intervention in the education sector has produced impressive results.
The program focuses on three pillars of access, inclusion and quality. The program is supported by eight other development partners who will also pool their resources, together with the World Bank and government resources. In addition, five non-pooling partners will support the program directly, adds the statement.
The total cost of the five-year program ending 2013/14 is estimated to be about $2.6 billion, of which pooled development partners have committed approximately $500 million.
As a sector wide approach, the program will finance salaries and benefits for nearly 120,000 government school teachers. It will also finance salaries of around 100,000 community recruited teachers through salary grants. Financing for all additional teachers to be recruited during the program period will be made through a per capita child financing formula that takes into account the number of students enrolled in a particular school, the release added.
I hope aid harmonization will be followed up in other sectors as well. The British government has unveiled $5 billion health care plan for six countries (Nepal being the only one from Asia). I hope other aid agencies harmonize their efforts with that of the British government. DFID has done quite a good job in education and health care sector in Nepal.
