Mukti Rijal

Promotion and establishment of new universities has caught a feverish momentum in Nepal. While provincial governments are reported to be mulling towards setting up universities in their respective jurisdictions one after the other, Gandaki Province has already incorporated the one through an Act of parliament. And the same has been established and operated in Pokhara. In the same way, Lumbini Province has been reportedly set to go the Gandaki way for the establishment of university in its jurisdiction but Shankar Pokharel’s exit as the Chief Minister may lead to set the project aside for the time being.

Centre for excellence
At the national level, Madan Bhandari Technology University claimed to be conceived as a centre for technical knowledge, sophistication and excellence in distinct departure from the existing set of conventional universities has reportedly started to take off. Similarly, a group of national intelligentsia has mooted the idea of Nepal University to embark upon a centre for high quality education focused on the field of liberal arts, humanities and social science. This university has been planned to be set up in Chitwan. However, the idea has been placed into jeopardy because of the dismissal of the government-appointed committee by the new coalition government. It is expected that this may be taken up again.

The problem of higher education in Nepal has been assessed to be an issue of relevance, quality and practicality of education, not of quantity and availability in general. Over the last few decades, quite a good number of universities and higher education institutions have been set up in the country. But they have proved to be a non-starter, especially in imparting quality education. However, Kathmandu University seems to be a bit different from the bunch of them. Despite some problems emerging time and again, it has become a major draw of the students especially belonging to the urbanite well-off groups who can afford to pay and finance the cost of education involved in it.

At a time when the role of universities, irrespective of their reputation and excellence from pedagogic perspectives, has to be re-imagined and redefined to make their pursuit socially relevant and useful, but in Nepali context both the existing universities and the proposed ones seem not cognizant of the emerging realities and challenges facing the fast-paced social changes.

In today’s world, universities are grappling to produce responsible citizens who would need to get involved in contributing meaningfully to create a democratic, just, inclusive and sustainable society. They need to produce competent and sensible citizens able to take care of the emerging social and environmental challenges facing the humanity. Universities should also be socially responsible and help through research and knowledge to fulfill global and national commitments by addressing inequality, socio-economic disparity, discriminations, environmental degradation and policy neglect.

The university education has, therefore, to be qualitatively enriched, updated and thus made relevant. Otherwise, the products of university education will not be able to contribute towards building a responsible, fair, equitable and sustainable society. This calls for the need in building the dynamic relations between universities and social communities.

The university engagement with community entails a process of exchange and cross-fertilisation of societal and academic resources and knowledge. This process is characterised by reciprocity of learning, sharing of practical needs and experiences. This partnership and collaboration can be beneficial for researchers, students and community at large. Students benefit from engagement learning, as they will be able to gain social knowledge and be conversant with social realities in a better way. This will also increase their understanding on the relevance of their knowledge to the community and society at large. In fact, higher education institutions need to enlarge their boundaries. They should be receptive to the diverse sources of knowledge. Multiplicity of cultures, values and ethos makes the world complex and, at the same time, challenging too. Community-university engagement involves various approaches and methods such as extension and outreach activities, learning through community services, engaged scholarship and community-based research.

There are successful cases of university-community engagement wherein both community as well as the university have pooled in their knowledge and resources together in conceptualising socially relevant plans and programmes. Some such networks as Global Alliance on Community Engaged Research, Global Universities Network for Innovation exist and they are found to be productive and fruitful. These networks have helped to strengthen community-based grassroots organisation in enriching their knowledge base and enhancing their capabilities in dealing with various social, economic and ecological issues.

University-community engagement also helps to bridge the gap between various knowledge actors and social issues and creates a synergy in addressing the social issues. It can also contribute to enhancing rights and social dignity of the people who are condemned to live in the fringes. Ultimately, they will have a say even if indirectly not only in governance but also influence the policy making.

Collaboration
Nepali universities and campuses can promote their engagement with communities though their collaboration with different public entities and social institutions. They can deploy students to undertake public need-based research in association with public entities and government institutions. This can help generate relevant inputs in policy making besides benefiting both students and community from this collaborative engagement. Any knowledge generated in the academic bodies and universities needs to be socially useful and relevant which alone can justify the investment of public resources assigned for running these institutions. Instead of opening new universities to multiply their numbers, it is necessary to transform the existing ones into vibrant and dynamic institutions in generating social policy relevant knowledge and information.

(The author is presently associated with Policy Research Institute (PRI) as a senior research fellow.  rijalmukti@gmail.com)