More than half of the population of Nepal is illiterate and relies on non formal and informal methods to learn new things to improve their quality of lives. The majority of these people are poor, marginalized and underserved. Illiteracy has remained a major bottleneck to the overall economic prosperity of the country. In light of the situation the majority of the population being denied to both formal and non formal learning opportunities, and government initiatives not being sufficient to reach out to unreached because of its multiple limitations gave rise a profound justification and an ample space for the foundation of an educational institution so that 'something' even at a small scale could be contributed for the nation's economic prosperity. As a result, the Educational Resource and Development Centre (ERDCN) was registered in the District Administration Office, Lalitpur as a non-profit and non-governmental social development organisation under a registration number 158-061/062 in 2005. Soon, ERDCN was also affiliated with Social Welfare Council (SWC) of Nepal under an affiliation number 17,706. The organisation has fulfilled all the legal obligations as set by the Government of Nepal (GoN) i.e. Permanent Account Number (PAN) and tax exemption certificate.
The members of ERDCN come from the diverse fields of educational and development background such as formal and non-formal education, research and development, organisation and community development, and inclusion who have successfully served as a responsible employee in different government and non government organisations/agencies. The reason behind the inception of the ERDCN is their experience and realisation that unless the peoples' access to education is increased, the widespread issues of poverty cannot be tackled in an effective manner. Education being the backbone of one's own development opens the eyes of individuals and also brings 'hopes in the faces of no possibilities', brings leverage in one's own life by creating access to information, opportunities and resources,
Prior to the foundation, some of the members were serving as an education specialist with one of the International NGO, called United Mission to Nepal (UMN) in its Non Formal Education Support Office (NFESO). Therefore, ERDCN's foundation could be considered as the transformed stage of the then UMN's NFESO, and therefore retains the resources and experiences gained over a period of 30 years in the field of Non Formal Education (NFE). ERDCN now has the copy right of the nationally popular and internationally recognised learning material "Pipal Pustak".
