Acknowledgements The current Education for All (EFA) 2004-2009 sector program in Nepal is a comprehensive primary education intervention as a part of Nepal’s EFA National Plan of Action (NPA) (2001-2015). The Government of Nepal (GON) has initiated this intervention in line with the long term objectives of social inclusion, improving access to and improving quality of primary education. To this end, Alternative Schooling Program (ASP) has been implemented in two forms namely, ‘School Outreach Program’ (SOP) with three years education for school age children of the age group 6 to 8 years who cannot go to school and the ‘Flexible Schooling Program’ (FSP) with a five-year primary school curriculum condensed into a three-year program by scheduling flexible time and choosing a location at their convenience. As a result of various noble attempts, the ‘Net Enrolment Rate’ (NER) of primary level has notably increased in recent years. The NER trends since 2001 to date for the primary level shows satisfactory progress, the NER being 91.9% in 2008 (MOES, 2008). However, the survival rate does not indicate a promising progress on the part of school going age children who continue to remain outside the education system. The problem of most educationally deprived groups and school age children in gaining access to basic education has remained to be a critical issue. In this context, the present study provides an in-depth information on the status and provision of AS by exploring ways for strengthening the program and finding ways for alternative measures. The research team received invaluable information from the field with full support and cooperation from different groups of stakeholders. The research team would, therefore, like to express heartfelt thanks to all of them. The research team would also like to express sincere thanks and appreciation to Prof. Dr. Arbinda Lal Bhomi, Executive Director of CERID and Prof. Dr. Kishor Shrestha, Coordinator, FRP, for their continued support and cooperation while undertaking this study. Similarly, the research team would like to express sincere appreciation to the reviewers of the report for their constructive comments and feedback. In addition, the research would like to express thanks to Mr. Gautam Manadhar, for layout and Prof. Dr. Jai Raj Awasthai for language editing of this report. Last but not the least; the research team would like to thank Mr. Surya Bahadur Mulmi, Chief of Administrative Section and Mr. Parashuram Koirala, Deputy Administrator, CERID for their administrative support in completing this study. 2009 Bharat Bilas Pant, Ph.D Researcher

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Acknowledgement In Nepal, education reform process was advanced also for improving organization efficiency of school system. For this purpose, reform endeavours were directed to improving school governance. In fact, such endeavour was made to implement decentralization reform in education. This is one of the objectives of EFA National Plan of Action 2004-09. Since the Action plan stressed on decentralized strategies for planning, management and implementation of reform endeavors, the decentralized school management through management transfer of community school received due significance. Efforts were made to improve organizational efficiency of school and enhance capacity of school managers and community members. Institutional support and technical inputs to schools are being provided. The intent of all these supports is to make school autonomous, efficient so that community stakeholders assume their role for yielding the desired results. This report is an outcome of the study on Community Managed School: An Innovative Approach to School Management. The study reviews the policy, assesses the implementation of policy and provided recommendations. I hope, the findings of this report will prove to be useful for improving the reform process and strengthening educational planning in the country. I would like to express my sincere thanks to DOE and DEO staff members, head teachers and teachers, SMC and PTA, parents, and others for their kind cooperation extended to me in this study. I also extend my cordial thanks to those who provided their support by making comments and suggestions in this report. Special thanks goes to CERID for giving me the privilege to conduct this research. June 2009 Hari Prasad Upadhyaya Researcher

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Acknowledgement Diversity in the people of a country in terms of race, culture and religion poses a challenge to educationists. It raises issues particularly of language and culture, and stresses the need of preserving cultural heritage and strengthening the coexistence of people of different cultural groups. Educating the Muslims of Nepal can be considered as a concrete example of this problem. Muslims perceive education as a multi-functional agent which must fulfill their educational as well cultural and religious needs. They have by welcomed the government recent effort of registering Madrasas as primary schools. This endeavor has, however, raised two issues. The first issue is related to the preservation of the cultural environment in the Madrasas. The Maulvies fear this would adulterate the cultural identities of the Madrasas and detach it from its main function of preserving and promoting Islamic culture. The second issue is related to the quality of education in the registered Madrasas. It also has raised the question of comparability and compatibility of education provided in these Madrasas. Access and quality are the important agenda of EFA and SSR. Registration of the Madrasas is not an end in itself but a means to provide qualitative education to Muslims, an important religious minority group. This step should be taken into account while thinking of relevancy and quality of education provided to them. This study attempts to examine the quality of education being conducted in the registered Madrasas and suggests the ways to ascertain the quality. On the behalf of research team, I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Dr. Arbind Lal Bhomi, executive director of CERID and Prof. Dr. Kishore Shrestha, FRP coordinator for providing me the opportunity to conduct this research project. I would like to express my best gratitude to Prof. Swayam Prakash J.B. Rana for his technical and conceptual support from the very beginning of this study up to completion of report. Without his constant help, it would not be possible for me ti finish this study on time. I must not forget to thank Mr. Veda Nath Regmi fir taking care of the language of the report. I am also grateful to Mr. Kamrul Haque, for his hard work. I highly appreciate. Mrs. Anjana Rajbhandari deserves special thanks for her assistance the throughout the research period. Thanks 2009 Hafiz Md. Zahid Parwez Researcher

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Acknowledgement Longitudinal Study on System Indicators for the Formative Research Project has been publishing the trend analysis report since its commencement. This report presents two reports Cohort Analysis Report and Trend Analysis Report. The Cohort Analysis report has specifically consolidated the student cohort data of three cohorts of 2002, 2003 and 2004. The Trend Analysis report presents the trends of the selected system indicators form 2002 to 2008. The information presented in this report is based on individual student record of the 62 sampled schools of 16 districts. It is expected that this report will be useful for the Ministry of Education, Government of Nepal to facilitate its process of planning, implementing, monitoring and managing EFA programs. The head teachers, teachers, and representatives from related VDC/Municipalities of all the sample schools who have played indispensable role in collecting and ensuring the quality of data are acknowledged by the study team and would like to thank once again. The team is also grateful to the representatives of Regional Education Directorates, and District Education Offices, School Supervisors and Resource Persons of the sampled districts for their continuous support. The research assistants who conducted cluster level as well as district level data collection workshops and visited districts and schools for the collection of data also deserve special thanks. The research team is obliged to thank the Executive Director of CERID Prof. Dr. Arbinda Lal Bhomi, FRP Coordinator Prof. Dr. Kishor Shrestha, Technical Expert Prof. Dr. Gajendra Man Shrestha and Advisor Prof. Dr. Hridaya Ratna Bajracharya for their indispensible support. The study team is also thankful to the CERID administrative staff members for the logistic support received during the undertaking of this study. Last but not the least; thanks are also due to the Resource Person Mr. Purushottam Manandhar for the regular technical support. 2009 Raju Manandhar Researcher

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