Literacy rate of Karnali Province is now only 62 per cent. According to the figure, more than 400,000 people in the province still cannot read and write. Kalikot, Jumla, Humla, Mugu and Dolpa of Karnali are yet to be fully become literate.
Out of 79 local governments of 10 districts in the province, more than 30 local governments are yet to be declared themselves as literate local levels.
The government has launched the literacy campaign across the country in the fiscal year 2008/09 with a plan to eradicate illiteracy within two years. Karnali Province also introduced
different literacy programmes in the fiscal year 2018/19.
The Karnali Province’s Planning Commission has targeted to declare the province literate by 2024\25.
According to the provision, the literacy rate of a particular local level must be 95 per cent to declare it literate. But the progress made by the province shows that it will be impossible to achieve the set target.
This time, the Ministry of Social Development has allocated only Rs. 200,000 in the current fiscal year for the programme. But in the fiscal year 2018/19, the Karnali Province
Government had allocated Rs. 20 million for the literacy campaign.
Although the federalism gives rights of education to the local governments, most of the local governments seem to be focused only on formal education. Informal education has not been the priority of local governments.
Balbir Sunar, Education Department Head of the Ministry of Social
Development, suggested the local governments to formulate a concrete plan in order to increase literacy rate.
He said that the regular teaching learning programmes alone could not be effective to achieve the target of making the province fully literate in two years.
Source : TRN,
