Stakeholders have said that policy reforms and their effective implementation are needed to increase access to education for Dalit children. They expressed concern that due to poverty, social backwardness and lack of awareness, many Dalit children are still out of school and that young people are unable to reach university and pursue higher education.

They said that there is a need to increase Dalit access to education. For that, they say that effective implementation of the constitution and state policies and some policy reforms are necessary.

In an interaction on the status of distribution, needs and impact of scholarships targeted at Dalits and the underprivileged organized by the Nepal National Dalit Social Welfare Association in Kathmandu, the speakers said that even after a decade of the implementation of the constitution, the Dalit community has not been empowered.

National Assembly member Bhuwan Bahadur Sunar said that although the constitution provides free education up to secondary level and special provisions for higher education to the Dalit community, it has not been implemented in practice. 'I myself am in the parliament. The constitution has made many policy provisions to increase Dalit access to education. But they have not been implemented,' said MP Sunar. 'We have urged the government to implement these provisions. We are putting pressure on the government to formulate laws.'

He said that the National Assembly is taking initiatives to formulate laws to ensure all other rights, including increasing Dalit access to education. He said that within the current legal system and structure, children and youth from the Dalit community still have to wait a long time to get quality education.

Ranendra Barali, a member of the dissolved House of Representatives, said that necessary initiatives should be taken to increase access to education for the Dalit community through the new Education Act. Harkamaya Bishwakarma, another member of the dissolved House of Representatives, said that the state should make arrangements for Dalit children to study up to higher education with full scholarships. 'Poverty is rampant. The Dalit community itself cannot afford to pay for higher education. There is such inequality in the current education that the poor and Dalits cannot afford it,' she said.

Professor Dr. Surendra KC said that there is a need for full implementation of the constitution, legal and policy provisions and necessary reforms to increase the access of the Dalit community to education. He said that the Dalit community itself should take decisive initiatives for that. 'There is still caste discrimination in a caste-based society. As long as caste discrimination persists, Dalits' access to education cannot increase. Dalits' economic life cannot improve until they have access to education. The country is always going through poverty,' he said.

Trilok Chandra Biswas BK, national president of Nepal National Dalit Social Welfare Association, said that efforts should be made politically to increase the access of the Dalit community to education. 'We have been trying from the social sector since the past. Now it is necessary to put pressure on it from the decisive level,' he said. He said that there is a need to prepare a social mechanism to evaluate the status of scholarship distribution being given to Dalits and increase monitoring.

Dalit rights activist Hira Bishwakarma accused the state of still depriving Dalits of education in a conspiratorial manner. 'The state still does not want Dalits to read and write. Even though there are Dalit-friendly provisions in the constitution and policies due to the strength of the Dalit movement, this is reflected in the unwillingness to implement them,' he said.

Jivan Tiruwa, coordinator of Dalit Gen-G Alliance, said that it would not make sense to leave these two issues behind and debate for the change of Nepali society, which is plagued by caste and class problems.

Most of the speakers at the program said that although the government has made various programs to increase access to education for the Dalit community, they are not effective and that a citizen-level network should be formed for monitoring.

At the program, Advocate Dal Bahadur Bishwakarma presented a working paper on the arrangements made by the government regarding scholarships for the education sector and the Dalit community and the status of implementation, while Program Manager Chitra Bishwakarma informed about the status of the organization's Dalit-targeted scholarship program. The organization has been distributing scholarships to increase access to education for the Dalit community for the past 33 years.