Kathmandu, May 19 -- In its election manifesto, unveiled in November 2017, the left alliance, now the unified Nepal Communist Party, pledged to allocate 20 percent of the national budget for the education sector.

The left alliance swept the elections and formed the government in February 2018. In May that year, when the finance minister presented the budget for 2018-19, he allocated half of what the left alliance had promised in the manifesto for the education sector--10.19 percent of the total budget.

Percentage-wise, this allocation for the education sector was the lowest in a decade. Of the Rs 1.31 trillion national budget, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada allocated just Rs 134.5 billion for the pre-primary to the university level ...