Education Bill and Beyond: Shattered Dreams of Future Nation Builders of Nepal
Though experts and policymakers frequently claim that the education standard of Nepal is globally competitive, the ground-level realities are deeply worrisome.
More than half a century-old Education Act will be replaced if the new education bill, which was recently tabled in parliament and actively discussed in the Education, Health, and Information Technology Committee, is passed.
Lawmakers, political leaders, cadres, and stakeholders should have thoroughly sensitized the general public about the salient features of the bill. What could be more important than an education bill that shapes social engineering in this era? Nevertheless, the education bill has largely turned into a teacher and staff management policy. Except for a few federal, structural, and teacher management provisions, no substantial discussion appears to have been held or agreements reached.
Several subtle yet crucial issues remain overlooked and have not received adequate attention in the bill.
First, within a single curricular framework, dual education under public and private ownership is being delivered to young minds, producing human resources with two entirely different mindsets. While both systems claim to adhere to the national curriculum, the ideological orientation, pedagogical practices, and ultimate outcomes they produce differ drastically. This dualism indoctrinates children into two divergent worldviews from an early age. The result is a generation not only socio-economically polarized but also psychologically divided.
Second, the Constitution of Nepal in Article 31(2) explicitly states, “Every citizen shall have the right to get compulsory and free education up to the basic level and free education up to the secondary level from the State.” “From the State” might mean education managed by the government in community schools only. However, a country that has declared itself “committed to socialism” in its constitution should have the capacity to absorb the current share of private involvement in education into state ownership. Ironically, even the education delivered by community schools is not truly free. In the name of limited government resources and English medium instruction, parents are compelled to pay for their children’s education at the school level. This bitter practice sharply contradicts the constitutional right. If such a fundamental constitutional right is not realized by the public, what meaning does the agenda of justice and good governance hold? And what is wrong if people challenge other constitutional provisions?
Third, more importantly, the education bill should have emphasized knowledge, skills, and attitudes as the keys to survival in an increasingly competitive world. It should also have revitalized socio-cultural values strong enough to sustain resilient lives as in the past. Unfortunately, the bill seems instead to promote neoliberal ideologies that are likely to erode national strength and identity.
Fourth, within the broader dual framework of private and public schools, the so-called medium of instruction has further divided the future pillars of the nation. Those enrolled in Nepali-medium schools often grow up with an extreme inferiority complex, while those in English-medium schools experience a widening gap between home culture and school practices—living in illusion and confusion. Ultimately, the result is clear: a cognitively paralyzed and dependent workforce.
Fifth, good command over the language of instruction, adequate cognitive foundation, and strong Cognitive and Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) are widely recognized as the prerequisites for personal and academic growth. These factors are also crucial in determining the appropriate age of school enrollment. Yet, in practice, the authorities show little concern for monitoring and regulating this. It is common to see children as young as three carrying bulky textbooks and spending full days in school. While scholars in developed countries advocate increasing the school starting age to seven, no serious discussion of this is taking place in Nepal. Lawmakers in the Education, Health, and Information Technology Committee, despite heated debates, seem neither to understand the issue properly nor to realize its gravity.
Sixth, textbook development has become a free-for-all, especially at the school level. At the basic level, not only the curriculum but also textbooks are crucial in imparting desired knowledge, skills, and attitudes to children. Indiscriminate and excessive involvement of individuals in textbook production without sufficient research or understanding of child learning has made education chaotic, misleading, and unnecessarily complicated. It is common to see students struggling with learning materials far beyond their cognitive levels and life experiences.
Seventh, the School Leaving Certificate has long been viewed as a passport for studying and settling abroad. University education further fuels this trend. Except for those enrolled in medicine, engineering, information technology, and a few other socially valued and expensive degrees, students of social sciences and low-cost programs hardly see a viable future through their education. Consequently, many either pursue options for migration or drop out.
When it comes to quality, university education has become a factory producing frustrated, literate yet unemployed human resources. The general environment in low-cost university programs is not genuinely academic. Research and publication among faculty members are often pursued only for promotions and professional titles, rather than innovation or social transformation. What transformation has been brought about by bulky dissertations and star-rated indexed journal articles? The real impact of scholarship lies in social transformation, not in personal recognition. If knowledge production does not translate into practical change, we are merely engaged in intellectual rituals without substance.
Students are surrounded by faculty members who, consciously or subconsciously, subscribe to neoliberal ideologies. Since these students are the future teachers of schools, they eventually practice and transfer the same attitudes and ideologies. Therefore, professionalization, along with revitalization of the teaching profession, is an urgent need that the bill must address with a robust mechanism.
In this context, it is difficult to expect genuine educational reform and, consequently, social reform in the coming decades in Nepal. If unaddressed, the nation will witness further erosion of its dreams and a continued outflow of its brightest minds. If truth, goodness, and beauty lie in the hearts of those in leadership, let Nepal live again with its glorious history.
