Nepal’s Education Policy And Practice

Nepal stands at such a critical juncture that people in every sector appear to have lost hope and confidence. A hushed presence of sceptic sighs is everywhere—at public places, markets, service centres, enterprises, industries, and airport departures. In the educational sector, negative voices resonate as we are presumably far from achieving the Humboldtian objective of education to “cultivate individual capacities, build a learnt, moral personality with inner refinement.” Our tertiary education is blamed for producing incapable, unskilled, and unemployed youth finding little hope within the national border.

 Education policymakers and professionals, however, need to contemplate what has gone wrong in the educational landscape of the country. Have the policymakers failed to envision a right policy for school and tertiary or third-level education? 

Is it the Education Act of 1971 working with minor revisions in regulations while massive socio-political transformation has taken place in the country over the time? Is it the incompatibility between policies and practices? Is it the absence of a substantial educational policy for higher, pre-career, tertiary, or third-level education? Is it the whimsical, idiosyncratic political and bureaucratic dictates or the cumulative assortment of all? The answer is evident, yet complex.

The discourse initiated by the Education Department of Nepali Congress on educational policy has provoked me to put forth my opinions publicly on higher education policy. I trust that the experience I have gained while leading Far Western University as the Vice Chancellor gives me an edge to express my views. I will reflect upon the current global wave of university education and the higher education situation in Nepal. This write-up dwells on components like academic calendar, curriculum, pedagogy, evaluation, quality assurance, financing, human resource management, and regulatory governance provisions for higher educational institutions.

Historically, the concept of the modern university began with the Bologna model, which prioritises the teaching and learning of ‘analytic, rational, critical, sceptical, and innovative thinking.’ The British model emphasises a trained mind and personality development. 

The French on intellectual and cultural development through faculties of letters and sciences inside and outside the university, the German on teaching and research in a Humboldtian line prioritising the idea of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and freedom of learning in communication with the professors. US universities emulate both the British model for training the mind and the German for combining teaching and research at the undergraduate level while developing their own independent parameters for graduate programmes. We have to think about where we stand.

With the wave of liberal economy, massive corporatisation of universities is taking place, yet they play a significant “transformative role” not only in knowledge dissemination, creation, and skill development of individuals, but also in social, cultural, political, and economic transformation of societies. 

The disciplinary shift is towards easy-to-quantify ‘hard sciences’ rather than ‘soft sciences,’ and education is more for ‘private good’ 

than ‘public good’ as students look for 

secure, remunerative careers to uplift personal income rather than to gain and preserve knowledge.

Nepal’s higher education is at the crossroads. It has failed to produce skilled and efficient human resources demanded by the job market. It is debatable whether education and jobs are complementary and whether educational deterioration has taken place. What is true is that a large number of students are leaving the country for higher studies after school education, putting a growing pressure on the national treasury. Reasons might be diverse, which needs additional discussion.

The reality is that the number of universities opened in the spirit of Tribhuvan University is increasing. They are established with the parliamentary act or the province assembly act. There are university acts and counter-university acts regulating their autonomous functioning. Commissions like the Medical Commission and councils like the Engineering and Law Councils asphyxiate the universities and obstruct their technical programme operation. Acts, counteracts, and regulations are inviting chaos by hammering the true spirit of academic freedom and institutional autonomy of universities. At such a juncture, the discourse initiated by a major ruling party in the coalition government holds hope and shows a promise.

The Nepali educational sector has to adopt a strong academic operation calendar that is reliable, predictable, and compatible with neighbouring and global academic institutions. The Nepali basic school system has maintained the calendar to some extent, but with limited breathing space for children between the two sessions. The high school education, the source of tertiary education, is yet chaotic in terms of the calendar of operation, thereby affecting the university intake. It is unpredictable in the universities when an academic programme begins and ends. A country following a liberal economy cannot turn its back on the world and make monolithic decisions. Higher education policymakers have to fix this issue irrespective of disciplines and the nature of the programme—technical or general.

The biggest blame on higher education institutions is that they do have traditional and outdated curricula that cannot cater to the needs of a technologically fast-growing world. The cry for vocational or technical or skill-oriented education from outside the university is a farce, as universities know whether their programmes produce the workforce, job seekers, or job creators, or complete individuals with full awareness of the world.

Higher education in Nepal needs intervention in pedagogy and the evaluation. Nepali universities are largely complacent with the dissemination of information and reproduction of knowledge. Creative and critical inquiry and reflection are at the lowest ebb. Until inquiry-oriented, experiential learning strategies are applied in pedagogic fronts at the school and tertiary education levels, aware individuals with a sense of self-inquiry for self-learning cannot be produced. This intervention may require policy decisions whereby educators’ capabilities can be honed through training and exposure, which requires investment.

Academic achievements are measured by using traditional tests largely for summative evaluation in a very formal setting. Such a summative evaluation system is time-consuming, formal, traditional, less reliable, and very taxing for the learners. The university calendar in Nepal is mainly affected by the evaluation system. Revisiting the summative evaluation and adopting formative evaluation for students’ achievement measurement will have magical outcomes. The memory-based summative evaluation is the reason behind a large student failure rate urging students to quit their educational endeavours in disappointment. Entrusting the teacher with the responsibility of evaluation will have positive impacts on academic calendar implementation and students' ongoing achievements. A shift from summative to formative evaluation demands national policy consensus. What needs to be done is strengthening the work ethics and sense of integrity of the faculty.

Educational quality assurance and accreditation mechanisms should be incorporated in the educational policy. For quality assurance, curriculum development, pedagogic strategies, efficiency, ethics of the faculty, and commitment of the students and infrastructure are of paramount importance. Provisions of credit transfer between universities within the country and outside need to be ensured. A condition of no compromise in teaching, learning, and research activities will invariably enhance the quality of education.

Higher education depends on how well the country pays attention to visible artefacts while establishing the universities. Innovative ideas may not prosper in universities that are cloned from the old universities, no matter how meaningfully they contributed at a time. 

Nepal has a tendency of establishing the university in a vacuum: without developing physical infrastructure, financial sustainability, and governance plans. A university where policies are made and changed at the whims of political and bureaucratic leadership cannot deliver results. Higher educational policy should focus on hiring talented, efficient faculty upholding meritocratic values, work ethics, a sense of integrity, dedication, and commitment.

An environment of leading a decent life is a must for making professors committed to their profession—keeping away from politics and additional vocations for earning. Entertaining only the deserving critical mass of students to higher education—the rest to vocational apprenticeship, creating a congenial academic environment within the universities, curbing outside intervention, and promoting students’ inward mobility and global engagement are further domains to be considered in policy formulation. What importance the government gives to education is reflected in budget allocation. Let us hope that the landscape and perceptions change.

(The author is a professor of English and former vice chancellor of Far Western University.)