Education in Nepal, Part 2: 'What is the point in schooling?'
Education in Nepal, Part 2: 'What is the point in schooling?'
- Published
With the world’s knowledge at their fingertips, and job opportunities abroad, what does the education system have to offer to Nepal’s youth?
- Journalist
- Naushad Ali Husein
- Photographer
- Uma Bista
Principal Sanjar Ansari has spent his best years nurturing his neglected school in Majurva, a backwater village in the Terai, the plains, of Nepal. But with one observation, he throws his effort into question.
“15 to 16 year olds go to work in Delhi or Ludhiyana and return with iPhones,” he says. Instead of school, many teenagers opt to cross the southern border to go work in India. In this economically impoverished village, the other children see that their peers have bought these with their own earnings.
“My own salary is NPR 36,000 (EUR 202.86). And a 16 year old is earning NPR 40,000 (EUR 225.40) a month, easily.” If they make it to the Middle East or the Far East, they can earn as much as NPR 100,000 (EUR 563.51). “So they’re asking, what is the point in schooling?”
Only 50 to 60% of the students enrolled in his school attend school regularly, he says.
Between 1970 and 2011, Nepal achieved remarkable success in enrolling children into schools, going from 400,000 students to nearly 5 million during this time, and expanding youth literacy rate to 94%. But like many lower- and lower-middle income countries, keeping these children in school has proven to be a challenge.
Only 40% of children who entered grade 1 in 2016 completed upper secondary school (grade 10) this year. And those who pass their exam and get their Secondary Education Examination (SEE) certificate will have to decide what to do with it in an economy with 20% youth unemployment.
This is part two in a three-part series about Nepal’s schools, facing challenges that much of the developing world is grappling with. It will look at the relevance of schools, and why students are increasingly uninterested in education. It will also show how one football coach is providing a compelling vision in answer to this.
What did you learn in school today?
The presence of Sunstone’s photographer has created a great deal of excitement at Shree Janata Madhyamik School in Kisanpur. After clamouring to pose for photos by the school lake, the grade 10 boys surround the photographer to see the images. Then, more photos.
Faizan Ansari is clearly one of the popular kids, sporting a smartwatch, his gelled hair tucked behind his ears. He leads us to his house afterwards. It’s a compound with the homes of the extended family. There are enclosures for various kinds of livestock.
Faizan tells us he wants to continue to grade 12. But when asked what he’s learnt in school that is actually useful, he delivers an awkward silence. The question is rephrased in Nepali and Maithili. Still nothing.
His father, Israyel Ansari fills in the silence, saying that he wants his son to go to Japan for work, for which a grade 12 certificate is necessary. “The education itself is not that practical or useful.”
Faizan’s two older brothers are already working abroad. One studied till grade 12 and went to Malaysia. The other studied till grade 10, and is now in Saudi Arabia. “Every household has two or three people working abroad. Within Nepal there are no opportunities to work, there are no businesses.”
Faizan occasionally misses classes to help his father, who trades in chickens. Israyel says Faizan is well versed in all aspects of his business.
Class toppers
At another school, Shree Mahaveer Janata High School, Vice Principal Madhukar Bhandari introduces us to a pair of his brightest students, Kritika Kumari Sah and Chandani Kumari Sah – best friends, neighbours, grade 9 class toppers with near-perfect attendance. They appear quite accustomed to the role of representing their school to visitors.
After school, they lead us through the neighbourhood towards their home, five minutes away. It’s a small town with paved roads. The buildings are lowrise brick and mortar, and alongside the people, are plenty of animals, both stray and owned. Nobody seems to be in a particular hurry to get anywhere.
At her home, Kritika tells us about her ambitions. After grade 10, she plans to get into a three-year program that will qualify her to join the public service (lok seva) as a health assistant. The programme is unavailable in her municipality Haripur. She would have to live in a hostel at a nearby district or the provincial capitals. With a scholarship the programme would cost NPR 300,000 to 400,000 (EUR 1,690 - 2,250). Without a scholarship, it would be about double that. Her family might have to take out a loan, but they are supportive.
Kritika’s friend Chandani is considering a similar programme in nursing. Both of their preferred courses would qualify them for level 5 government jobs, with minimum NPR 35,000 (EUR 197) monthly salaries upon entry. The jobs are not guaranteed; they must beat out a fair bit of competition.
They are conscientious students. Kritika has missed only one day of school out of 141 in the last academic year. Only six children in her school have such a flawless attendance record. Their parents pay extra for math and science tuition throughout the year, which they have to attend at 6.30 every morning. “I wake up, wash my face and run”, says Krittika.
If the purpose of education is to provide economic opportunities and a pathway out of poverty, then combined with hard work, determination and support from the families, the 13 years of schooling would have earned Kritika and Chandani a chance at improving their economic situation. Their desired roles in public service would give them the opportunity to contribute to society in a real and tangible way.
But their story seems to be that of a minority. Even within Kritika’s family, the boys are leaning towards finding work abroad. Nobody we spoke to on our three-day stay in the Terai even mentioned any interest in University.
The purpose of education
For three decades until 2011, through political upheavals and a decade-long militant Maoist insurgency, two things were constant in Nepal: the steep rise of school enrolment, and the World Bank’s involvement in education. In its policy guidance, the World Bank prioritises the need for education systems to produce “human capital” that is aligned with the “labour market” and capable of contributing to the country’s economic growth, and frequently recommends educational reforms that achieve this function.
In a 2001 document, Priorities and Strategies for Education Reform, the World Bank advocated for a secondary education system with “greater relevance to the skills and attributes valued by the labor market.”
This influence is easy to find in Nepal’s education policy documents, such as the 2016-2023 School Sector Development Plan, whose mission is “For Nepal’s school education to produce the needed human resources to elevate Nepal’s status from a Least Developed Country by 2022 and to reach the status of a middle-income country by 2030.”
Nepalese pedagogist and education expert Dr Amina Singh points out that in a country that was founded on socialist principles and ruled by communist parties for much of its history, this is not a natural or intuitive vision. The National Curriculum Framework of 2019 illustrates the contrast: it focuses instead on creating “capable and competent citizens” who are “loyal to the nation and nationality, committed to the values of a democratic republic, self-respecting, respectful of social and cultural diversity, of character, ethical and responsible citizens.” In terms of their role in the labour force, it says students should be “employment and self-employment oriented, productive, entrepreneurial and skilled.”
But this document has limited sway, she says: “I’ve actually talked to people who work in education, even teachers, they don’t even know this document exists [...] The most prominent discourse is education for building the human resource of the country. And surprisingly it comes from the left and the right.”
But she is also not convinced that taking a human capital approach serves the long-term interests of the country. In the long-run, educators must ask what kind of citizens the students will become. “We need to build citizens with civic sense… [who] understand their broader context, their history, their society, have a sense of who they are, how they are bound to a place or a nation.”
The irony is that despite Nepal’s education policies having been oriented to the labour market and economic growth, children are uninterested in school precisely because of the dismal employment prospects it offers. Dr. Singh says this might be because there has been no projection of the human capital needs of the country. “When we say we are producing human capital, we don’t even know what we’re producing them for.”
In its latest 10-year plan, the Education Ministry has rolled back the “human capital” narrative. Its vision is to prepare “capable, creative, and value-oriented citizens”.
The beautiful game
Back in Majurva, Principal Sanjar Ansari says one thing has been keeping kids in school: football.
That is because of one man’s vision. Having been forced to abandon his childhood dream of becoming a professional footballer (his family did not support it), Bibek Bandhu Bhandari decided to train children, and give them the joy of football. His dream brought him to Shree Adharbhut school in Majurva, which he had heard was severely under-resourced.
“They love football,” says Bhandari. “It’s inbuilt into them.” He made the football training available to anyone with over 80% attendance in school. Ansari says this has improved attendance in his school. But in the process of teaching football, Bibek has ended up teaching much more.
First, he had to get the kids to stop fighting. The community is divided into different religions and castes, including Muslims, Chowdhurys and Dalits.
“When I first came here there was so much discrimination and hatred between the kids,” says Bhandari. Initially, he was forced to teach them separately. But alongside football, he started teaching the principles of respect and discipline, to mentally prepare them to eventually play together. Eventually they had to play together to represent their school against another. After that game, they began training together.
The trouble with football was that only the boys would play. For the girls, Bhandari was joined by his partner, Prajita Gupta, who started teaching art. Both of them found ways to instill values and teach life skills as part of their art and football classes. They call the initiative One More Light.
