A Short description about sample districts:

(I) Humla: The Humla district is one of the mountainous, remotest, poorest and backward districts in Nepal with no road access. One of the five districts of Karnali zone in Nepal's Mid-western Development region, it is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and west and with the Mugu district in the east. To get here, one has to fly to a small airstrip to the district centre Simikot and then travel by foot to reach other places within the district.

Almost all the people depend on agriculture although less than 2% of the total land is cultivatable. This makes living challenging and people find it difficult to meet their daily needs. The district has severe food deficits and people depend on getting food from outside their district. As a result, they suffer from malnutrition and other related diseases. This particularly applies to the children.

Humla is a multi-lingual society. Of the thinly-spread population, about 8%, are Bhotia people of Tibetan origin who speak Tibetan and are Buddhists. In contrast, the Southern part of the region is mostly inhabited by Nepali speaking Hindus (82%). According to the population census (1999), 19 different languages are

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spoken in this district. There is a high child mortality rate (over 30%) and low life expectancy.

Health services facilities are negligible and the education system is very poor (for e.g. low NER, high GER, high dropout rate and low attendances are common phenomena). The literacy rate is 29% (female 9% and male 47% respectively); gender disparities are persistent across all school levels. GER is significantly higher than NER according to sex and levels of school indicating that there is both high repetition of grades and late enrolments. All students have to walk to reach their schools. There are few schools and 83% students spend at least half an hour commuting to school, while 4% have to spend more than an hour commuting. (II) Ilam: It is located in the eastern part of Nepal. The district is formed of mountainous terrain. The mountain terrain in Ilam is made up of gentle slopes. This together with a moist climate provides a suitable environment for growing important cash crops such as tea and cardamom. This district comprises 48 VDCs and one municipality; Ilambazar is the district headquarters. It is almost 800 km from Kathmandu.

The Illam district has a diverse ethnic distribution, although the predominant ethnicities are Rais and Limbus which makes up about 38% of the population. There are also Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups including Magars and Gurung who make up about 17%. The Rais and Limbus reside mainly in the lower hills and valleys whilst the Magars and Gurung predominantly populate the higher hills. Altogether there are 13 different ethnic groups living in the district including Brahmin, Limbu, Chetri, and Newar including other marginalized groups such as Sherpas, Sunwars, etc.

The Eastern Hills are home to the Gurung ethnic group, a large janjati group who have their own language. This is a relatively poor district with many landless wage labourers, for example on tea estates.

The 2001 CBS recorded that the literacy rate of the population of Illam for children of 6 years and above of age was 66%. A large proportion of the population in Illam are mainly dependent upon agricultural work and foreign employment. According to the HDI of Nepal, Illam's child mortality rate per thousand live births is 51, where

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Nepal's average is 69. The average life expectancy is 65 years, slightly more than the country's average figure which is 61 years.

(III) Kaski: Kaski district is located in the hills of the western region of Nepal. It has 43 Village Development Committees (VDCs), one municipality and one sub- metro city.

The district is a multi-caste society where people belong to the different caste/ethnic groups. The average literacy rate in the district is 56.8% (CBS,2003). Based on the over composite development index, Kaski it is ranked 5th best among 75 districts in Nepal. This district is easily accessible and has all the basic facilities such as heath- care, electricity, education, communication and entertainment (phones, internet access, satellite television and radios) with transportation facilities available for all VDCs and villages. Pokhara city is the headquarters of the western development region as well as being the zone and district headquarters. It is about 200km west of Kathmandu, the capital city and can be reached by plane in half an hour. This city is an emerging economic hub and is also a famous tourist destination visited frequently by many tourists.

After Kathmandu, Pokhara has some of the best private (and government) schools, colleges and universities throughout the whole country with advanced facilities for the students. Many families with high and medium income levels send their children to these schools. They achieve the best exam results and performance overall in the examination league table.

(IV) Chitwan: Chitwan is known as the second capital city as well as the heart of Nepal as it is located in the central part of the country. The district comprises two municipalities and 39 VDC. It lies about 150 km south of Kathmandu. Travel is easy by road and air. Chitwan is a newly emerging city where people from all parts of the country migrate to settle down. The main occupations are agriculture, business and services. Bharatpur, the district headquarters is the seventh largest city of Nepal. In terms of ethnicity and cultural diversity, Chitwan is a very rich district where Brahmin/Chehetri is the dominant caste, although the Janajatis also constitute a large proportion of the population. The proportion of Nepali speaking population is about 70% with the remaining 30% being non-Nepali speakers. The percentage of

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people who are literature in this region is about 82%. The population is dominated mostly by Hindus, followed by Buddhists with a small percentage of Islamists and other religions.

(V) Banke:

Banke is one of the central points for the mid-western and far-western development regions. The majority of the government regional offices, bilateral and multilateral donor partners offices and a large number of INGOs and NGOs are located here. These organisations offer development activities in various parts of the region. Nepalgunj, the district headquarters has one of the busiest domestic airports reaching to almost all the hilly and mountainous districts of this region.

The district is populated with inhabitants who have originated mainly from three different groups: hill-migrants, indigenous nationalities known as Janajati and Tharu, the remainder being of Indian origin.

This district is composed of multi-ethnic religious and caste groups such as Brahmin/Chhetri, Tharu, Muslim and Dalits. In terms of language, they speak Abadhi/Nepali, Hindi, Tharu and Urdu, although the majority of the population understand and speak fluent Nepali, the national language. Nepali is used as a mother tongue among all the hill-originated ethnic-caste groups.

(VI) Kathmandu: The capital is part of a large conurbation with many internal immigrants from other parts of Nepal. The population has increased because of ten years of conflict. It is the wealthiest area of the country with HDI scores double those of Humla. The facilities are excellent in terms of services and job opportunities. It has a large and predominantly young population who seek better opportunities in terms of education and employment. The government's central offices are based here. Other infrastructure such as healthcare, entertainment and the international airport are located here which means that there is much work. With almost three times more private schools than government schools, Kathmandu also has some of the best international schools providing first class education and tutoring. The learning environment in these schools is outstanding demonstrated by their strong academic attainment. Table 2-3 sets out the details of the various districts.

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Table 2-3: Summary of educational characteristics of the sampled districts Educational

Indicator

Humla Banke Kaski Chitwan KTM Ilam National Average Number of schools 123 409 638 530 1,370 485 34,361 NER 95.8 96.1 98.4 96.6 98.6 97.6 94.5 GER 216.7 155.6 131.0 116.7 134.2 106.7 139.5 Dropout Rate 10.4 4.6 4.1 3.5 3.0 7.3 6.0 Repetition Rate 22.4 10.6 5.0 9.3 2.2 11.9 12.1 Promotion Rate 67.2 84.8 90.9 87.2 94.8 80.3 81.9 Attendance Rate 76.4 83.7 87.6 66.7 77.2 75.4 77.2

Sources: Flash Report I (2010/11), Department of Education, Bhaktapur, Nepal 2.5.2 Sampling Procedure

After forming the strata in the above fashion, a two stage sampling process was adopted. The districts in all the strata were considered as the Primary Stage Number (PSU), and were sampled in the first stage. In the second stage, the desired number of schools was randomly selected from each of the selected districts in all strata. The details of the selection procedures are described below: First Stage of Selection: In the first staged selection, six districts (PSUs) were chosen from among the 75 districts in all strata. The selection procedure was carried out independently for all the strata under consideration. The districts were chosen by a random - selective process using two criteria: place in HDI index of districts [UNDP 2006], and secondly, recorded level of educational performance, as measured by outcomes from the government FLASH studies 2008. Districts selected for the study were those ranked in 1st place [top], 36th place [median] and

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75th place [bottom] by each of the two criteria. These six districts cover Mountain, Hill and Terai geographical belts, and also the five development regions.

Second Stage: In the second stage of selection, all sampled community schools were selected randomly from amongst the total number of schools in the selected districts mentioned above. The list of schools in each district for 2010 was obtained from the Department of Education (DOE) and was used as the sampling frame.