With the opening of school academic session 2075 B.S and school enrolment campaign from 15th April 2018 all over Nepal, Loo Niva has started organizing its Annual Gathering for Education Support Program (ESP) to children, parents and teachers. Annual Gathering activity is a significant part of Loo Niva’s Education Support Program, since 2005, for children, parents and teachers to interact directly with Loo Niva team. It contribute and strengthens children right to education, bring out of school children and have access to school education for all. This year Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli also campaigned to increase the net enrolment of students from the existing 97.2 percent and other celebrities joining too to help spread awareness on the importance of education and attract pupils to schools.
The five events of ESP annual gathering and parents' orientation program will be conducted in centrally located schools reaching out its all supported (Education Sponsored) children from the neighboring catchment locality. The three events were conducted so far on 26th April at Ganesh Secondary and Bakhel Basic and on 30th April at Adarsha Saula Yubak Higher secondary School of Lalitpur with schools supporting the venue. It was conducted in two phases: in the first phase, students prepared the greetings letter to their respective ‘Education Sponsors’ in Finland (in partnership with Interpedia). (Loo Niva has also Local Education Sponsors) In second phase, Loo Niva team prepared the progress report of each child. The students were happy to receive stationeries, copies, exercise books and course books. Parents were informed about the government scholarship provisions, school enrolment campaign. Loo Niva interacted with the parents and collected their feedbacks, suggestions for Loo Niva and their role in children education and holistic development. 15 Loo Niva staffs, interns and volunteers worked hard to make the day fun and successful. It directly benefited 112 participants which included 54 students 52 parents and 6 teachers.
Currently, Nepal’s school system has 7.24 million students. Government has plans to provide full set of free textbooks on the day children enroll, grant scholarship to targeted and day meals to retain students in remote schools. Although Nepal has made tremendous progress in enrolling school students from 80 percent a decade ago, the dropout and class repetition, and poor learning achievement rates remain too high.