
Nepal
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- Partner since: 2009
- Coordinating agency: Delegation of the EU and Coordinating Agency, USAID
- Secretariat country lead: Aya Kibesaki
- Board constituency: Asia and the Pacific
COVID-19 response
Allocation: US$11 million
Years: 2020-2021
Grant agent: World Bank
Key documents:
The US$11 million grant supports:
- safeguarding access and learning for all children - especially girls and children from the most marginalized groups - by using both high tech and low tech approaches
- distance learning programs for all children through TV, radio, and the learning portal
- additional disability inclusive content (e.g. captioning, interpretation, use of images and examples that are inclusive)
- printing and distribution of learning kits for children from marginalized backgrounds with no access to technology
- free bandwidth access to the learning portal through arrangements with telecom companies and internet providers
- communication campaigns to promote the schedule of TV and radio programs; messages on the importance of education; disease prevention; and sensitization campaigns to prevent gender-based violence and teenage pregnancy
- teacher/ head-teacher professional development opportunities to address students’ learning gaps post COVID-19
- grants to schools with resource classrooms and special schools to address the education needs of children with disabilities – including remedial instruction
- grants to local governments to ensure the safe re-opening of schools in areas most affected by COVID-19.
These initiatives are based on the Ministry of Education’s COVID-19 response plan.
In late March 2020, the UNICEF office in Nepal received a GPE grant of US$70,000 to support the Ministry of Education in its response to the pandemic. The grant was used to produce and distribute self-learning packets for Grades 0 to 3.
Education in Nepal
Nepal's School Sector Development Plan (SSDP 2016-2023) focuses on improving education quality and builds on the achievements of the previous School Sector Reform Plan (2009-2016) and the Education for All Program (2004-2009).
The SSDP is a seven-year plan, supported by a pooled funding mechanism, with a joint financing arrangement between the government and 8 development partners, with high donor coordination and use of the public financial management system.
Under the federal system, the provincial and 753 local governments are responsible for basic education provision. At the federal level, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) serves as the executing agency for SSDP. A newly established Center for Education Human Resource Development is tasked with preparing annual work plans and budgets and the annual strategic implementation plans.
Nepal has made impressive gains in improving access and equity in education in recent years, demonstrated for example by the achievement of gender parity in basic and secondary education and the increase of Dalit students in schools.
Improving the quality of education is at the heart of SSDP, due to low learning levels and inequity in learning outcomes. To address this, activities include improvements in the learning environment, pedagogical practice, curriculum, textbooks and learning materials, student assessments and the examination system.
Close to 260,000 teachers work in the basic education system (public and private).
A large variety of stakeholders participate in the planning and monitoring of the SSDP, through a well-established and coordinated joint planning and review mechanism. Two joint sector reviews take place each year.
Latest blogs and news
January 25, 2019
From November 13 to 18, education civil society leaders met in Kathmandu, Nepal, for a series of exceptional events - six days full of discussions, exchange of ideas and sharing of experience.
October 05, 2018
World Teacher’s Day is the occasion to celebrate teachers, who are on the front line of ensuring children’s right to education is realized. Discover some of their stories, like Bin Nou in Cambodia, Lalao in...
Latest grant

Despite challenges Dipesh is at the top of his class
Dipesh Nepali, 15, at Shree Mahendrodaya Higher Secondary School, Sindhupalchowk District, Nepal. Four years after the earthquake, and despite having lived and studied in makeshift structures, Dipesh is a good student and is always ranked first in his class.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

The temporary learning center
Students at Shree Mahendrodaya Higher Secondary School play football in the open space in front of the temporary learning centers. Behind, the school's new building (with red roof) is under construction.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Dipesh walks home from school.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Dipesh at home with his mother
Dipesh arrives home after school. His family’s house, located far above the valley floor, was destroyed during the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015. Less than a year ago his family moved into this new home. It is smaller than their old house, but safer because it is only one story.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Dipesh is doing homework in his new home
Dipesh studies after school at his new house. Without a desk, he improvises and kneels on the side of the bed: “I study like this because it feels like I’m sitting in school on a bench," he explains.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

A view from the Chautara, Ward 5, Sindhupalchowk District, Nepal
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Construction of new and safer schools
Principal Dhruba Lal Shrestha supervizes construction of the new building for Shree Krishna Ratna School in Chautara, Ward 5, Sindhupalchowk District, Nepal. Sindhupalchowk was among the hardest hit districts by the earthquake of April 25, 2015 as well as in the aftershock that occurred on May 12. The school, which had over 1,400 students, lost 44 of its 50 classrooms. “Thank God it happened on a Saturday,” says the school’s Principal Dhruba Lal Shrestha. “We cannot imagine what would have happened if we were in the classroom at that time.”
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

A temporary learning center
Mathematics teacher and students at Shree Krishna Ratna School in Chautara. While the new school is being “built back better”, students have spent the last three years studying in classrooms made of corrugated sheeting.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Matisha Napit at a temporary learning center
Matisha Napit, left, is in class 10 at Shree Krishna Ratna School in Chautara, Ward 5, Sindhupalchowk District, Nepal. “I’ll be happy to move to the new school,” she says. “This school is airy and it’s not too hot, but when it rains it’s very noisy, and the water just comes in. I’m looking forward learning in a proper classroom.”
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch

Matisha, her sister Alisha and mother Binita Napit outside their house .
Though still in construction, the family has been able to go back in their house for a year. The stairs and the back of their house fell down the steep hillside during the earthquake.
Credit: GPE/Kelley Lynch
Development objective:
Improve the quality, equitable access, and efficiency of basic and secondary education by supporting the government's School Sector Development Program
Allocation:
US$24,200,000
Years:
2020-2021
Grant agent:
WB
Disbursements:
US$0
The US$24.2 million implementation grant, approved in March 2019, is made up a a regular allocation of US$9.2 million and a GPE Multiplier grant of US$15 million. The program’s objective is to improve the quality, equitable access, and efficiency of basic and secondary education by supporting the government's School Sector Development Program. The program provides additional financing to the existing World Bank Nepal School Sector Development Program (US$185 million).
The GPE grant follows the World Bank's program for results instrument, with a fixed part of 60% and a results-based portion of 40% with 10 targets supporting the areas of equity, efficiency, and learning.The GPE Multiplier grant is leveraged through an additional funding of US$163.86 million from the Asian Development Bank to support disaster risk reduction and comprehensive school safety, and US$3.5 million from USAID for inclusive education.
The GPE grant directly supports key SSDP results areas clustered into three result areas:
- Improved teaching-learning and student learning outcomes to improve early grade learning levels, textbooks and learning materials, student assessments and examination system, teacher/school management and accountability.
- Improved equitable access to basic and secondary education: Pro-poor interventions, such as preparation of a database on out-of-school children, provision of grants to learning centers and schools, provision of pro-poor and pro-science scholarships for poor and marginalized students.
- Strengthened education system, sector planning, management and governance: Enhanced fiduciary system, improving and operationalizing the grants management system, operationalizing a web-based EMIS and improving self-reported EMIS data by schools, integrating SSDP activities in local governments' annual plans and budgets and providing open data on conditional grants released to schools.
Grants
All amounts are in US dollars.
Grant type | Years | Allocations | Disbursements | Grant agent | |
COVID-19 | 2020 | 11,000,000 | 0 | WB | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Program implementation and multiplier | 2020-2021 | 24,200,000 | 0 | WB | |
Program implementation | 2016-2019 | 59,300,000 | 59,219,165 | WB | Completion report |
2010-2014 | 117,760,473 | 117,760,473 | WB | ||
Sector plan development | 2019-2021 | 496,698 | 0 | UNICEF | |
2015-2016 | 387,608 | 387,608 | UNICEF | ||
Program development | 2018-2019 | 129,995 | 129,995 | WB | |
2014-2015 | 155,322 | 155,322 | WB | ||
Total | 213,430,096 | 177,652,563 |
Data last updated: January 22, 2021
GPE has also provided the National Campaign for Education - Nepal (NCE Nepal) with a grant from the Civil Society Education Fund, to support its engagement in education sector policy dialogue and citizens’ voice in education quality, equity, and financing and sector reform.
Education sector progress
The graphs below show overall progress in the education sector in Nepal, and GPE data shows the country progress on 16 indicators monitored in the GPE Results Framework.
Source: World Bank - Education Data
Data on education are compiled by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics from official responses to surveys and from reports provided by education authorities in each country.
Last updated May 20, 2020