By Manjima Dhakal

Janakpurdham, Nov. 23: Local governments in State 2 have challenged the federal government plan on literacy by introducing their own plans and policies on the same.
The federal government has targeted to declare the country fully literate one in the next two years, but the local governments said the target could not be achieved at least for next five years.
The local governments stated that the target could not be met in a short period of two years because enrolling the children from some ethnic communities in schools and continuity of their study has become difficult.
The authorities of the local governments said the federal government set the target without consulting with local levels because of the unitary thoughts of the centre.
The plan and policy formulated by Janakpurdham Sub-Metropolitan City in 20185\19 has targeted to declare Janakpurdham literate by next five years because of the poor educational achievement there.
Lal Kishor Shah, Mayor of Janakpurdham Sub-Metropolitan City said they could not meet the target in less than five years because of the education status in the sub-metropolitan city.
He said, “About a week ago, the city appointed 60 sweepers. None of them are capable to put their signature. These all illiterate sweepers are from the age group of 18 to 40 years. This gives the clear image of Madhesh, not only Janakpur in terms of the literary situation.”
According to Shah, drug addiction among youths has become another challenge to meet the target in Janakpur.
The situation of Saptari is no different forms Dhanusha. Khila Nath Gautam, headmaster of Narendra Memorial Secondary School of Rajbiraj, said though teachers and social leaders had been trying their best to enroll all children of different ethnic communities, they failed to enroll the children from some backward ethnic groups.
Gautam said, “There is a settlement of Sada (Madhesi Dalit) community near the school. But the school failed to enroll even a single child from the community when parent of Sada community did not take the requests of schoolteachers seriously.”
Like Sada, children from Bakkho, Khatwe, Mandal and Ram communities were not enrolled in the schools. Even if they enroll in schools, they hardly coming to attend classes, Gautam added.
However, Gehenath Gautam, director of Center for Education and Human Resource Development, said the local levels have to formulate their policy on the basis of national target.
“It is wrong to set one’s own target without connecting it with the national target. If any local level is facing the problem of budget to meet the target, they can consult with federal government about their problem. But the local levels have to cooperate with the federal government to meet the national target,” he added.
Talking about the appointment of illiterate people as employees in the municipality, Gautam said that to discourage the illiteracy authorities did not have to appoint illiterate in the government job.
“The local government seems to promote illiteracy by giving job opportunities to illiterate there,” he said.