Federalism in Nepal: Early Implications for School Governance

Nepal’s constitution of September 2015, which shifts responsibility for basic and secondary education to 753 newly established local governments, has the potential to significantly decentralize education policy and oversight of schools. It can improve school quality and other education outcomes, but only if new local governments improve the accountability relationships and supports that govern the relevant school-level actors. Using surveys administered in 2019 to School Management Committee (SMC) members, head teachers, and teachers, in a nearly nationally representative sample of 203 combined primary-secondary schools, this chapter describes school management at the dawn of the reform, the emerging relationships between schools and the new local governments, and initial perceptions of how the reform is changing school governance. Some findings are encouraging. Local officials have established connections with schools, central financing was not disrupted, parental and community involvement in schools increased, and head teachers and SMC members appear optimistic about local government involvement in education. Other findings, however, are less encouraging. Local governments appear more engaged with school infrastructure and enrolment than with overseeing teaching quality; and even where local governments aim to improve education quality, they face significant challenges, because of weak education management institutions within schools, where deficits of time, capacity, or interest limit efforts by head teachers, parents, and SMCs to supervise and support teachers.