April 25: The Ministry of Finance held separate discussions with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health and Population on Sunday regarding the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The Ministry of Finance discussed the programmes proposed within budget ceiling with both the ministries.

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma suggested the concerned ministry to include such programmes in the budget that would prevent the tendency of school drop-out rate.

“Most of the students enrolled in grade 1 tend to drop out of school before even reaching grade 5. The number of students in higher classes is even lower,” said Minister Sharma, adding, “Let’s prepare the budget and introduce programs to determine the cause why students drop out of the school and create the environment for the students to not drop out.”

He also remarked that there is a need to move towards digital technology to change the way of learning with time. He instructed the concerned authorities to start a programmes to make use of digital technology for teaching in some schools from the upcoming fiscal year.

Stating that the establishment of IT colleges is necessary, Sharma said that a budget should be allocated for that as well. Sharma said, “There are many programmes that failed to show effective results despite continuous budget allocation. Therefore, we should prepare the budget by focusing on programmes that have good return.”

In the meeting, Minister for Education Devendra Poudel emphasized the need of programmess to ensure quality education, stating that there will be chaos everywhere if the education lags behind. He said that the development of the country will also be supported by better education.

Similarly, Vice Chairman of the National Planning Commission, Biswo Nath Poudel, said that the compulsion for students to go to school by travelling a long distance should be removed. He said that the tendency to study with government’s money and going to work abroad after the completion of studies should also be discouraged.

During the meeting with the Ministry of Health and Population on Sunday, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma said that it is necessary to formulate the budget in such a way as that it would end the compulsion for poor people to live with diseases.

He requested to propose budget and programmes to expand the services of Patan Institute of Health Sciences and Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj to other places as well.

He said the upcoming budget will address the issue of health insurance reaching out to the poor families, improving maternity services, creating a situation where people do not have to go abroad for treatment of complex diseases including kidney and liver diseases.

During the discussion, Health Minister Birodh Khatiwada said that arrangements should be made for the posts of doctors and equipment in 500 to 1,500-bed hospitals.