Kuragraphy of Nepalese Education
"As much as I have finished the study of Nepal, now I am trying to go abroad to study," said a young man I met during a trek in Chisapani two years ago. I also wrote in the diary. After that, various questions arose about the history, development, and current education situation in Nepal.
While searching for facts and figures, interesting facts about the state of social understanding about Nepali education began to be found. For the time being, I've left the physical, mathematical, and theoretical debates about education alone. I have created some intriguing Kuragraphy about how locals construct practicality in education.
What does Nepali education teach?
"There is nothing else to read more about
Everything is pointless
There's nothing else to know more about
Everything is worthless
It is never read aloud
which has insightful knowledge"
This short poem posted on Arjun Parajuli's Facebook post seems to be a mirror of Nepali education. Those who are studying Nepali education don't know why. The teacher does not even know what kind of manpower to prepare for teaching. Parents do not even know what, why, how, and where to teach their children. School, school, and more school—they constantly send their children to school. The children go to school. Teachers teach, even if it is only for the day.
There is a Nepali proverb that says, "Musk is said to have no knowledge without its own." Similarly, Nepali education has not been taught to look at originality with its own eyes. We are rejoicing in the recitation without understanding the verse, meanings, contexts, narratives, and subdivisions, rather than understanding the education system developed by others for others, on other grounds, and for other purposes.
Rhododendron is a beautiful flower. Lychee, or paineple, is a sweet fruit. But the proper geographical environment is required for rhododendrons to bloom and groundnuts to bear fruit. Similarly, Nepali education needs to develop a society, tradition, art, culture, values, geographical and environmental facts, and markets suitable for our own originality.
We teach ourselves, and everything we have is wrong. What kind of teaching is this? You are ashamed to say Nepali; you are fined for speaking Nepali; you are useless in the world just because you are Nepali; all that we have said is madness. To become a human being, you have to learn from or imitate everyone else. What kind of teaching is this? You have to sell your house and work for someone else. What kind of education is this to teach that being a servant to others is more honest and dignified than being a master? The Nepali education system needs to find answers to many such questions.
The practical side of Nepali education
In a Nepali environment with 69.9 percent literacy, education's practicality is declining day by day in daily life. Even if it is acceptable to fill out the necessary forms in various offices (citizenship form, passport form, police report form, driver's licence application, photocopy, and helpdesk paying service charges), the unfortunate scenario we have to face is that university students are asking for a copy of others' filled-out forms of the subject studied by the students themselves and coping a filled-out bank voucher.
On the other hand, English-medium education products in private schools do not understand the colloquial Nepali language. How they would understand the standard Nepali language used by government officials
(Look, guys, learn to make a plough in time, and girls, learn to do household chores. If you spoil students by saying, "The elephant got that big by reading a lot," your education will be useless in the future. So, it's better to waste time in school than to help your parents and learn how to do housework. This is a reminder that the teacher scolded us or advised us in the ninth grade in the agriculture class. Keep in mind, though, that traditional self-sufficient agricultural work has led to misery, and that reading as a way to be noble, successful, independent, free from traditional labor, or have a good income is a socially constructed meaning in education.
Even though there have been some efforts to promote vocational education, the standard reproduction of vocational education seems weak.Reading a book has gained legitimacy. Books are also considered a great way to cover books within the school curriculum. Education, which considers sports, art (painting, singing, dancing, music, etc.), literature, creation, research, etc., as only extracurricular activities, forbids traditional knowledge, experience, skill, values, practice, and culture.
The standard meaning or purpose of Nepali education is to produce employable manpower rather than wisdom and knowledge. Moreover, it is to produce manpower with certificates. The humanities faculty are almost understood to be the attainment of higher education, and in most of the jobs, they also seem to have consumption or dominance. It is a fact that there is a debate over the issue of specialisation and skilled manpower in the related field. However, as there are no big industrial or commercial industries in Nepal, the proportion of manpower consumption in annual employment is almost less than 1 percent compared to annual educational manpower production.
When calculating the salary facility for those who get a job, only those who have free government education seem to be in a dilemma. Mocking Nepali educational institutions has become a bitter reality, even as a factory that annually produces millions of educated unemployed.
The cultural side of Nepali education
After 1951, which was considered a golden age in Nepali educational development, the general public was encouraged. The policies, rules, and curricula of Nepali education developed during the Panchayat period left a deep imprint of Panchayat-style nation-building. From culture to culture, languages other than Khas Nepali were interpreted as vulgar, barbaric, wild, etc. The identity of other nations was prohibited and discouraged.
Nepali education is not addressing our traditional social systems, customs, cultures, traditions, or practical knowledge. The so-called educated have been educated by disregarding themselves and their cultures, cultures, practical knowledge, and values, and by disregarding, ignoring, hating, feeling inferior, and isolating themselves from customs, beliefs, and values.
So, when it comes to reading, generations feel like they don't belong to gods and goddesses, don't do religious things, don't plough, don't drink, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, don't plant, donencourages eating pizza, noodles, spit, biscuits, McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Fanta, etc. to make yourself smart. This is the worst future for Nepali education.
Although education in some mother tongues was introduced as a form of dynamism in the Nepali education system after 2046 BS, research and study efforts of various cultures have been made from time to time.There is no environment to evaluate their reproduction.
disappointing government school
"Government school education is not working." Nowadays, people want to send their children to English-medium boarding schools, even if it means eating less and borrowing money. It would not be an exaggeration to say that government education is depressing in the current context.
Citing a survey conducted by Martin Chautari in 2019 on "Community Schools in Nepal: School Operation Process," the Government of Nepal said there are currently 35,601 community and institutional schools in operation. Only 29,039 are community schools. Out of about 7.4 million students, 6.1 million (82 percent) are studying in community schools.
Out of 1,47,538 teachers working in community schools, 1,09,118 work in sanctioned posts, and about 38,420 are working in relief quotas. With such a huge financial burden being borne by the state, the investment in government education is becoming as useless as water in the sand, and the credibility of government schools is becoming more and more frustrating. Its factors are Nepali education policy, objectives, the system, political interference, teachers, and parents who are related to it. All these direct and indirect stakeholders have to take responsibility, and there is no alternative but to accept responsibility for the shortcomings and look forward to improvement.
To bring government schools to this stage, mainly in terms of politics, teachers, and parents, it is said, "During the Panchayat period, there were teachers in government schools who raised the Communist Party in Nepal." It also contains maximum truth. Except for the Communists, almost all parties have used educational institutions to organise and expand public relations.
Therefore, to develop the school as a political base, to appoint policy recruitment and regulatory bodies as political recruitment centres. Teachers are more political party cadres than teachers. Because the parents do not accept the school's degradation and avoid all the responsibilities by putting them on the government's shoulders, the condition of the government school is becoming more and more depressing day by day.
Long service and appointment in the hometown
Studying in the village and getting a job is another social understanding of becoming a teacher. This may be a desire created by obsession. because the only institution that can provide employment is the school. Once the job of a teacher is secured, what else is needed? Usually, some teachers have been teaching for 36 to 42 years. How many generations of children have been taught in this way for more than four decades? Usually, fathers and sons, and sometimes even three generations, have been taught.
How progressive and transformative the four-decade-old teacher must have been, especially in a country like ours undergoing rapid social change. From the dusty generation of dusty "A" to the generation of computer players who grew up with smartphones, is "A" psychologically correct?Those who served long after retiring, are they still filling jobs for the next generation?This should be the subject of discourse.
The teacher appointing his nearby school from his house or walking distance would have a motif to improve the standard of education, but it produces more negative impacts than positives. He did whatever he could in his hometown, saying, "Government works when the sun goes down."
He was busy with his housework, political, social, and other work rather than school. In 2018, while conducting education research, I observed in about 15 schools in the Terai, hills, and mountains that, according to my observations, teachers outside the home school were active in the teaching work of the school.
"I have not been able to study." "I am suffering abroad to give a good education to my children." It is the dream of the majority of the young generation who have gone abroad to work.to give a good education to the children and to create a good job. This is a short explanation of good education: one is boarding school (an English medium school), and the other is an expensive school.
Where you sit, what you drink, and how much you pay to drink water may only be nineteen or twenty different when the root is the same.For example, a bottle of mineral water costs Rs. 20 in a normal retail store, Rs. 50 or 100 in a restaurant, and Rs. 200 or 300 in a five-star hotel. Doesn't that mean 200-dollar water is 200 times cleaner?
In this way, most boarding school operators and teachers seem to be government school products. And since the curriculum is the same, the teacher is the same, and the method is the same, what kind of miracle can happen there just because of language?
Another downside is the high scores given by private schools. There is a proverb that says, "Ghokante Vidya and Dhyavante Khetire is a proverb that says, "Ghokante Vidya and Dhyavante Kheti." Another Nepali abstract culture that gets better after paying more is also found in society. Let's compare the time, attention, expenses, and guardianship given by a parent to a child attending a boarding school with the time, attention, expenses, and guardianship given by a parent to a child studying in a free government school.
For example, the direct involvement of the same child in parental activism while attending both government school and private school can also be observed. As a result, it is clear that the emotional bargaining of the student's score is a result of the parents' investment in showing poor results.The social integration, artistry, hard work, activism, self-confidence, and coping skills of students with problems studying in private schools are more depressing than those of students in government schools.
What is a good education? Paying a big amount for a fee teaching in the English medium? There should be good subject knowledge or language knowledge. And how much does a good education develop a student's understanding, creativity, entrepreneurship, and self-confidence? If not, what kind of teaching is there to look at oneself through one's own spectacles? What kind of education makes you feel inferior? How much did the investment in a good education pay off? Etc. It may be necessary to have a greater debate on its usefulness from various sources.
The daughter-in-law, who lives in the city to teach the child
A new social phenomenon constructed as an alternative to the search for better education is the "daughter-in-law who lives in the city to educate her children." To improve the family's economic condition, the dream of Nepali youths living abroad for employment is to give a good education to their children. As an alternative to government education, which has become frustrating due to extreme negligence in government education, the practise of staying in cities and local markets to teach children in English-medium boarding schools opened in cities and local markets, chowks, etc., seems to be gaining ground. Social studies of its achievements in education, family, and society also seem to have begun.
Education is expensive in Nepal.
The government has made arrangements to provide free education up to the secondary level as a child's basic right. But parents who are conscious of their children's education due to the disappointing education in government schools and consider themselves very wealthy send their children to private schools by paying expensive fees. On the other hand, the newly affluent class seems to be taking root in the luxurious culture of spending millions on introducing children to competitively expensive schools. Due to the mentality that expensive is good, a new understanding of "education being expensive in Nepal" is being created.
After secondary education, the affluent class that sends their children to foreign universities also has a good social presence. It can also be considered counterproductive for secondary education to dismantle the disgusting psychology that everything is gone in Nepali. Another is that young people who have graduated from vocational education are crushed like a mustard seed in the throes of unemployment, which leads to this frustrating disillusionment.
First of all, the Nepali education system has no choice but to develop basic Nepali education suitable for Nepali social, cultural, environmental, market, etc. Second, education for what? The purpose of education needs to be clear. Today's Nepali education is as confused as a crow in a fog. It is important to be clear about what, how, where, and how much to invest and what the return will be, taking into account the interests, abilities, availability, parental access, market for educated manpower, etc.
For this, advice, training, and counselling should be arranged as needed. Currently, students in Nepali education are confused by the lack of counselling. They are taught what to study, where to study, how to study, its costs, and the potential earnings. Parents also seem to be running after crows, saying that the crow took their ears after a good education. Therefore, there is no alternative to developing a productive education system by giving proper advice to students and parents at the right time.
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