What is the main idea of the reading text?

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42

An education pioneer born into rural poverty in Nepal has opened 30 schools in a bid to boost prospects for his country's children. 

The World Bank ranks Nepal as the globe's 31st poorest country, with almost 10 million people living on daily incomes between £1.48 and £2.50. Many rural villages remain unreached by government schooling and adult literacy stood at just 60 percent in 2011. 

Surya Karki and his charity United World Schools Nepal (UWS) are tackling high illiteracy and poverty rates by funding and improving education. 

The first school opened in 2015. Since then 92 percent of children have completed primary education, which finishes at age eight, and continued into secondary education with UWS schools, in comparison to 39 percent of students continuing education who attended government schools. 

Mr Karki was born into poverty in rural Nepal. Speaking to the Telegraph he said: "School is the only solution to the poverty cycle that we live in. I was raised by a single mother in a male-dominated society.  The school that I went to was approximately two hours’ walk away. My house was on top of a hill and my mother had to drag me across rivers. We used to walk 10 miles a day. The schooling was really bad." 

Karki's mother was a firm believer in education, and at age eight Karki secured a scholarship to study in the capital, Kathmandu. From there he won scholarships and completed Master's degrees in China and the United States. He returned to Nepal in 2015 and decided to stay and develop the education system. Karki said: "Inequalities in a country can only be decreased if there is access to knowledge." 

The devastating earthquake in 2015 damaged 9,300 schools, displacing hundreds of thousands of families and pushing 700,000 people into poverty. As of January 2018, only 2,891 schools had been rebuilt. Karki said: “We came at a crucial time, where we could redo or undo what had been done badly. Education was really bad in terms of infrastructure, quality of teachers and training. It was an opportunity for us to really make things better." 

UWS Nepal has so far built 30 schools and has seven more in construction. The schools run between 10 am and 3:30 pm, and have an 86 percent average attendance rate, which Karki says is almost double the attendance rate for government schools in the vicinity. Sexual health classes are taught to the children in the later years. 

(Adapted from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people)

What is the main idea of the passage?

• A. It was not easy to be educated by a single mother in a male-dominated society
• B. The disastrous earthquake in 2015 deteriorated the schooling system in Nepal
• C. A man born into poverty in Nepal inspired thousands of children to finish school
• D. Nepal successfully got rid of illiteracy thanks to the financial aid from the World Bank