Springwell Of Media Educators

Academic studies in Journalism have to thank primarily to The Rising Nepal, followed by the Gorkhapatra and the national news agency (RSS). All state-owned news outlets, the trio’s newsroom staff members have made rich contributions as an undeclared treasure trove of resource pool.

 In the course of his regional visit in 1975, King Birendra felt the need for formal journalism education. Within a year, Ratna Rajya (RR) Laxmi Campus in Kathmandu offered Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) as a major subject at the Intermediate level, then known as Certificate Level and now recognised as Plus-two (or higher secondary).

Curriculum

Gokul Pokharel, Bharat Dutt Koirala and Lal Deosa Rai got together in drafting a curriculum but under the RR English Department. Yogendra Purush Dhakal, the first Nepali to do an MS in Journalism, also chipped in some input. Koirala was in TRN’s founder newsroom in the winter of 1965. Pokharel joined TRN’s inaugural issue team, while Rai joined the editorial forces a few years later. Subsequently, Pokharel was transferred to TRN’s sister publication, Gorkhapatra, whereas Koirala joined the country’s first newspaper as its editor in the 1975-76 winter.

An acute lack of fully qualified hands was an acute problem. So were reading materials both for teaching staff and students. Part-time teachers were hired on a daily wage basis and were poorly paid.

Koirala did not take any classes at academic campuses, though Pokharel took a few in 1976 and, again in the 1990s, at the bachelor’s level. Rai and Dhakal took classes during the initial period. An assistant editor at The Rising Nepal, Rai resigned from TRN in the 1980s to teach full time. He was a faculty member until in his 80s.

RSS presence

 Ram Krishna Pandey, a senior reporter at RSS, began taking evening classes at RR Campus while Rai manned the afternoon session. When Pandey found the task too demanding because of his reporting assignments, he quit but not before introducing his colleague Jagat Ranjan to Rai and the campus officials for the job. Manjula Giri, a reporter at RSS, joined the lot as the succeeding semesters progressed. 

Nepal’s first full-time photojournalist, Gopal Chitrakar, taught the JMC course at the bachelor’s level for more than a decade until the 1990s. He also taught for a couple of years or so at St. Mary’s School, as he could not say “No” to his daughter’s alma mater’s request. He joined the Gorkhapatra Corporation in September 1973 and was responsible for meeting the photo requirements of both TRN and Gorkhapatra as well as other publications of the country’s biggest media organisation. 

When RR Campus authorities expressed their inability to upgrade the JMC studies to bachelor’s level (or diploma level), Patan Multipurpose Campus Chief Dr. Mangal Raj Joshi took up the challenge. He banked on Bharat Dutt Koirala and Gokul Pokharel in the undertaking. The duo contributed to draft a curriculum but decided that they would not be able to take regular classes, perhaps on technical grounds. 

Pokharel then approached me for teaching full time after TU authorities agreed to hire me on a regular contract basis to become the “First Staff” as the Dean, Dr. Surya Lal Amatya, described. For all practical purposes, a separate department for Journalism and Mass Communication was set up. Rai, too, obtained a similar provision for teaching intermediate-level students but under the English Department at RR Campus until Bachelor’s Journalism was started there. 

Teething trouble: After the first batch of about a dozen students attended the bachelor’s exams, with JMC as a major subject, students at RR Campus protested, arguing that the authorities introduce the course on their campus, too. Their voice was valid in that the eligibility criteria for the BA JMC course stipulated that an applicant must have taken JMC at the certificate level.

Having done so much for offering the bachelor’s course only to be shifted to another campus when “it was time for harvesting,” Dr. Joshi was deeply dismayed. The wrangling went on for about a year, by which time the JMC students had completed their exams, and TU’s inordinate involvement in releasing the results was also addressed. Free from the rigmaroles, I was deputed to RR Campus.

Gopal Chandra Sharma, of TRN, was a full-time faculty member at RR for a few years until he joined the Reuters news agency and quit TRN. In fact, he had a brief stint at RSS prior to joining TRN sometime in 1979-80. In the new millennium, Bijaya Lal Shrestha and Jagdish Pokharel, who both became TRN chiefs in the new millennium, taught journalism at campuses in Kathmandu.

After more than two decades at RSS, Ram Krishna Regmee taught journalism at St. Mary’s and then helped found the department of Mass Communication and Journalism at Kantipur City College, which straightaway introduced a master’s course under Purbanchal University at the turn of the century. It was also the year TU set up the Central Department of JMC at Master’s level, with I as the founder head.

Premier training

In Nepal’s history of organisations conducting journalism training programmes, the Nepal Press Institute (NPI) ranks as the pioneer platform. A brainchild of Koirala, NPI launched a ten-month diploma course focused on imparting skills in 1984. Pokharel was the other driving force. Dhruba Hari Adhikary was also in the team. I too took classes at NPI from its commencement until into the 2010s when serving as its chairman.

Koirala and Pokharel convinced Gopal Das Shrestha, chief editor of The Commoner, the country’s first English daily, to accept the NPI chairmanship. The rush for attending the fee-paying course was so heavy that at one time in the 1990s, the programme had to be conducted in two shifts. Pokharel chaired NPI for three terms. Adhikary and I, too, succeeded him as the institute’s chair.

Pokharel, Koirala, Adhikary, and myself were the key resource persons for the course, which was held at RR Campus, thanks to NPI treasurer Padmasana Shakya, who was then the RR Campus chief. She made available a classroom for the evening programme and a small cubicle-type room for NPI’s administrative work.

A year later, NPI rented a more spacious place at Babarmahal, directly facing today’s Kathmandu District Court at Babar Mahal. Lal Deosa Rai and Ram Krishna Regmee joined the trainers’ pool.

Singular distinction: No other single institution has made so much contributions. Pokharel and I were on the Subject Committee at Purbanchal University for one term, with Regmee joining the KCC with full devotion in the very year when I became the founder head of the Central Department of JMC when the MA course was launched and, later, the MPhil curriculum was developed and PhD scholars were enrolled. 

Media educators with TRN and Gorkhapatra, RSS, and NPI have played a highly distinguished role in journalism education in Nepal. This was possible because these organisations followed the policy of many reputed universities overseas to allow their staff members to also teach.

(Author of more than 20 media-related books, Prof. Kharel is a former chief editor of The Rising Nepal.)