Current Status of Nepalese Education System

Author
Samiksha Phuyal
Krishi Innovation Hub
Rupandehi, Nepal (Currently)
Written: 2nd January 2018

The article is mainly based on my experience and vision towards the Nepalese Education System which is almost totally the truth. All the terms and conditions that hinder the upliftment of education system in Nepal is included in the article hoping for the reformation of such condition in order to catch up the pace of development.

In early days, before the foundation of democracy, the education in Nepal was based on homeschooling and gurukuls. Of course, only the higher caste and rich people were provided education at gurukuls. Later, when Rana regime was the supreme order in the country, Dev Shumser established hundreds of schools for the public, but his effort was banned and was dethroned as education was not provided to the public. The birth of democracy in 1951 lead to the diversification of education system in Nepal and the higher education shared a huge chunk of importance among the Nepali community. But, that was not enough as it is yet to be realized in the developing country like Nepal. The changes are taking place continuously, which is a good thing but there are hurdles that impose the discontinuation to it and the progress is lagging. One of the major reason behind this obstruction is the political drama; the political parties and the politicization of every sector. Politics has rooted the governmental system and process so deeply that the youths, supposedly the pillar for the nation’s development, are forced to join a political party even before they get to see the college. They are forced to fight for the demands made by the political party and their obscure campaign more often and less often are seen to have devoted their time to study and extra-curricular activities. As a result, the youths, at the higher education level in almost every government colleges and every field are found to be fighting in very minute issues not just for the demand but also for the political rivalry.

The education system here is highly theoretical. It is based more on theories present in the textbook than in practical knowledge which does not do a favour for the students to testify their knowledge in the field. And that’s when things get difficult for students as they lack experience and can’t cooperate effectively in their fields. Due to this, students get in dilemma when asked about their course and its usage for they haven’t been prepared for this and the theoretical expressions given to them would become handy in this situation as 1) they may not be able or know to use it and 2) they are highly likely to forget those expressions when unknown about their physical interpretations. A theoretical knowledge simply does not qualify someone for the job. They got to have some skills they can apply to their work which is not the situation here and that creates unemployment. Unemployment maximizes their leisure time and as there’s as say, “Empty Mind Devil’s Home”, people starts to think negative. Also, youths are highly vulnerable at this stage emotionally, so they catch up bad deeds quickly because of which even the educated youth are found involved in wrong activities like drug addictions and crimes.

The development of infrastructures isn’t catching up as it should have been due to these political dramas. More and more students are graduating each year at an exponential rate. This creates fewer job opportunities and more competition for a single seat and hence the political drama continues. Also, in search of alternatives to this situation, most of the students nowadays are eyeing towards the European countries for further education and jobs. Moreover, after spending few years, they plan to settle there which is not a good cause for the nation. A survey only on the student living at Kathmandu valley can suggest more than half the student’s population taking coaching classes in test preparation courses like GRE, SAT, GMAT, TOFEL for abroad studies. Youth are the building block of any nation, but their population at the country is continuously decreasing. At this level, it cannot be said that one day in future, there will be only the old people and the little kids left in the country.  The capital city Kathmandu has been the centre of everything. Higher governmental works, administrative functions etc. all are centralized here. This, somehow, has caused the localization of higher universities and other educational sectors around Kathmandu. So, the students are bound to stay around for good education. But, the city with everything centralized in it cannot be cheap. The expenses for renting a room or hostel is way above average and can only be afforded by rich peoples. Due to this, children or poor kids, who can’t endure such expenses, don’t get to have a good education and hence good fortune. Many of them must spend their whole life in the dream of getting a good education. The educational system gets a lot worse when the teacher’s children who are the job holders of government schools/colleges teach their children in private schools saying that there is no proper teaching system and management in government schools. They find it a foolish decision to teach their children at government institutions but don’t think it’s them who run those institutions and it’s their negligence which is creating such thoughts.

The teaching profession is considered to be the worst profession here. People say, “Jo Padhera Kei Banna Sakena, uh Teacher Bancha.” (If a person can’t do anything after study, he/she becomes a teacher) and that’s the condition here and thus leaves a bad impression towards the profession of teacher. Even a good teacher does not get a reputation he/she deserves, and this is one of the reasons a qualified and passionate teacher is hard to find as the conception towards a teacher is all in all bad. The poor syllabus of the textbook is one of the drawbacks of the education system. Nepal is a rapidly developing nation and a developing nation wants changes. It gets the swift change in infrastructures and thus requires enough manpower to sustain such changes. The quick changes in infrastructures require new skills and teaching which require the teaching pattern to be changed and moulded continuously. But, this is not the condition here. Still, the old syllabus and old teaching style are used. In fact, the syllabuses aren’t even updated in 10 years. This does not allow the new generation learners to get updated on the course contents and they lack the current knowledge and skills and hence the infrastructures and the knowledge and the usage techniques of those infrastructures don’t coincide generating slow-paced development. Due to the lack of updated syllabus, the country demands manpower and the products produced by the present education system endure miles difference which cannot satisfy the need of the present population.
The practice of information technology in educational analysis helps to connect the individual to the world but Nepal still fails to give quality and skill-oriented education to its citizens. The use of old software, programs persists today and there lacks new concepts. One of the software must use by schools here is Microsoft Office, but they still use Office 2003 where office 2016 has already arrived. Only a few private institutions have implemented such use of new information technology in the educational field, but they have hiked their admission and these opportunities can only be afforded by rich peoples which do not provide any help to the education system. Usually, the public schools located in remote areas do not have enough staffs as the government does not allocate enough teachers. Also, the teachers don’t want to stay in such places due to lack of availability of basic items. Thus, a less qualified like, primary level teacher are forced to teach the secondary level students which are beyond their capability. The teacher with no proficiency in a degree teaches the subjects like math teacher teaching social science so the class is always going to be a disaster as he/she can’t teach anything beyond what’s given in the content resulting to poor education and hence the poor knowledge students.

Private schools do have great teachers and well-managed staffs under a good management But, some private schools restrict the students from performing the extra-curricular activities like games and so on. The private institutions are usually profit making and highly competitive and they need the good result to win the competition. So, they limit the extra-curricular activities for they just want their students to engage in studies hoping they would score a good percentage when their mind is directed towards a thing: study and percentage are all that matters to them Also, they get highly theoretical and unswerving in their teaching. As a result, the overall development and improvement of the student lack. Some of the private schools even plan to SEE/HSEB board exam for their students to gain a handy percentage. They keep the weak students with the intelligent student and aim at producing 100% result only for the name and fame of their schools/colleges but rather don’t care if they are spoiling the future of the students.

The base of our community has a very socially dominant status. The students usually are not free to choose what they desire and are forced to take the courses that their parents or in some case even society wants. This creates the unwillingness to carry out and concentrate on the study in students mind and usually results in poor grades and inadequate understanding. The real talent of the students is dominated by the parents and society’s wishes; studying becomes very unrealistic and unpleasant and thus no one gains nothing at all.

Of course, there are several opposing forces to the development of a good education system. In fact, in a developing nation, they are supposed to prevail. Hopefully, the education system would catch up with the pace of the development and be realizing that the education system has gotten very old, the reformations to the education system would take place quickly. When these things get done, it is for sure that the betterment of the education system will bring wide fluctuation in the status of education.