Our Challenges

In Nepal, the circumstances of children’s births predict the opportunities they’ll have in life. Children growing up in historically marginalized and disenfranchised communities lack access to a broad spectrum of resources they need to thrive. The obstacles they face-poverty, discrimination, trauma, and school systems that do not provide them with the education they need—are overwhelming.

• Education is a fundamental human right. All children should get to enjoy their right to a quality education. They deserve education from early learning opportunities that lay the groundwork for success in school to all the way through secondary school.
• Over the last 20 years, Nepal has made significant progress in education. The net enrolment rate in primary schools has risen to 97 per cent. However, the country still has many challenges to tackle. Issues that persist in education include poor quality and inequity in access, geographical remoteness, gender, socioeconomic and ethnic differences, and political instability and bureaucracy. Key barriers to enrolment and attendance include poverty, social exclusion, disability, migration, child labor, social norms and gender bias.
• 770,000 children aged 5-12 years are still out of school.
• Only a half of students in grades 3, 5 and 8 meet the academic achievement criteria for Nepali and mathematics.
• Attendance in early childhood education (ECE) is still low at 51 per cent.
• There is inequity in the education sector as only 12 per cent of children from the lowest wealth quintile are developmentally on track in literacy and numeracy compared to 65 per cent from the highest wealth quintile.
• There are now 35222 elementary and secondary schools and 10 universities with more than 1400 colleges and campuses throughout Nepal.
• Very few schools meet child-friendly school standards.
• The student to teacher ratio is just 20.91.
• Net enrolment rate in secondary education is 61.87 per cent.
• Only 73.55 percent of pupils in cohorts that enroll in elementary education survive until the last grade of elementary education. The completion rate in lower-secondary education stands at 69.7 percent and drops sharply to 24.5 percent at the upper-secondary level.
• In the country as a whole, the adult literacy rate remains strikingly low and stood at only 67.1 percent, far below the global average of 86 percent (the youth literacy rate is much higher at 92.39 percent comparing to the global average of 89.6 percent).