"The Campaign has had a good start"
-BK Shrestha, co-chairperson of National Campaign for Education (NCE) Nepal, '
Q: You recently participated in a regional conference on the 1GOAL campaign. What dnews_id it resolve?
Shrestha: The regional conference was on Civil Society Education Fund, and it had the "1 GOAL: Education For All" campaign as a major agenda. The conference shared highlights of different countries with regard to Global Campaign for Education and particularly concentrated on lobbying and advocacy of 1 Goal Campaign based on a toolkit.
The campaign toolkit sheds light on some of the opportunities, actions and resources available to make this as effective a campaign as possible. It clearly states and emphasizes the works we are doing on national campaigning and advocacy platforms during this period. It is critical to ensuring that our efforts leave an impact on policy makers while reinforcing our capacities to ascertain strong and accountable national commitments toward achieving the "Education for All" goals.
The toolkit is actually a directive for all counterpart campaigners in the planet. The campaign being takenbeyond the event itself could have a long term impact. The event would definitely be capitalized for the ''Education for All (EFA)'' agenda -- an international commitment for provnews_iding access and quality education to all children and adults by 2015--, and it is not an end but a milestone moment.
The conference was held on 14-17 June, 2010 in the Sri-Lankan capital Colombo, and the participants were from 13 different countries of South Asia, South East Asia and Asia pacific.
Q. How important is the campaign for Nepal?
Shrestha: The 1 GOAL campaign is a unique opportunity for National Campaign for Education Nepal (NCEN) to turn this period a milestone in the 2010 campaign on Global Education. It is highly important and valuable for our country since we still have massive drawbacks in our education system. Facing them, it would definitely be a far cry to meet the 2015 deadline.
Launching of 1 Goal Education for All campaign in Kathmandu
Through this campaign, we would draw attention of the government as well as of donors, civil societies and people of different social sectors to accelerate efforts to accomplish the goal within next four and a half years. The campaign, which we believe is a landmark step toward our goal, focuses on three major education-related policy demands: Allocation of at least 20 % of national budget in Education, declaration of schools as ''Zone of Peace'' and transparency in government programs and policies.
Q. Compared to other countries in the region, what dnews_id you find about Nepal''s position in light of this campaign?
Shrestha: The scenario has been found different from country to country. There are countries in our region where literacy is no longer an issue. Countries like Sri Lanka are involved in the campaign to ensure qualitative
education system.
It was also observed that we have not taken the educational issues as much wnews_idely among different sectors in public as our neighboring countries like India and Bangladesh for collective voice. Policymakers, leaders and celebrities seemed very supportive in those countries and bigger masses are taking part in this campaign.
Our leaders and officials often make commitments in international forums but tend not to even mention them afterwards.
Given all this, we need to capitalize every ounce of any opportunity that sensitizes the policy makers and brings together the stakeholders concerned. We can not only assert the education system as a certain behavior between the government and citizens of certain section or class. It should be a concern involving everyone from grassroots to the centre. There is no better platform other than the campaign at the moment to bring home our reality and push for actions.
Q. As NCE is heading the campaign, how do you feel is it going on?
Shrestha: Since the campaign is not limited within the period of the FIFA World Cup, I have taken it as a good start, spreading the issues throughout the country and bringing together people for raising their voice to draw attention of leaders and policy makers to make the EFA
goal a reality. According to government figures, around 229 000 children in Nepal are still deprived of opportunity to go to schools. National Campaign for Education Nepal will continue making its voice louder for its three key poilcedemands to make the EFA goal be realized.
Signatures supporting the three demands in education sector.
A signature campaign has been launched in the country to get wnews_ider support and commitment from people from all walks of life to create a synergy for achieving the common goal. It could be a landmark platform to let the world know us being part of a global endeavor.We are keeping the world informed about what we are doing during the campaign through Global Campaign for Education, International