Imagining Community Colleges in Nepal: A New Model to Prepare All Students for Success

• In Event: Importance of Community Colleges and Global Counterparts to Higher Education: Building Dreams and Achieving Possibilities

Abstract

This presentation highlights a policy discussion with higher education leaders from Nepal regarding the creation of alternative models of higher education based on existing community-based colleges. Currently, the government of Nepal is refining the strategic planning of the higher education system with the explicit purpose of addressing the need for economic and workforce development, college effectiveness, governance and leadership roles, and introducing college credit transfer and semester system. In November, 2011, a conference was held in Kathmandu in which the National Planning Commission and University Grants Commission collaborated with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Bank to design a new higher education policy framework that discussed the possibility of creating a new system that can accommodate the increasing number of students wanting access to higher education every year (UGC, 2014).
Based on interviews of Nepal educational leaders and content analysis of current policy, the authors examine the feasibility of establishing a new community college system that would be a promising road for Nepalese post-secondary education to enhance economic, social, and cultural shifts.
Nepal has vocational and technical colleges (CTEVT, 2016), that are structured in such a way that they do not give students a pathway to university education as curricula is limited, less practical, and institutions have failed to offer skills and knowledge to meet the knowledge economy demand of the Nepalese labor market. CTEVTs are also not always located remote regions. In addition to CTEVTs are an existing system of colleges that work in collaboration with a local university. These community colleges follow a curriculum prescribed by that university and while provide a link to a local community, do not support open access nor have a curriculum that supports economic growth. As such, there is a need to create a new institutional type to bridge courses and programs to ensure employability and competency of individual trained, life skills and communication in English (Bista, 2011).
As seen in other emerging countries, this study shows that a Nepalese community college or global counterpart could become a change agent to help promote labor market with skills, technology, knowledge and experience for youth. The challenge in adopting a new institutional model, is to maintain local access but also to ensure flexibility by becoming an autonomous entity that develops a stronger collaboration between the government and the community. A new model can be replicated and refined by its programs and courses depending on the local needs, depending on the economy and infrastructures. Nepal can promote social justice, support the job market, and build a mechanism to reduce poverty, unemployment, and gender inequality by establishing and implementing a community college education successfully. The scholarly significance of this presentation is that such education system will not only allow Nepalese students be productive contributors of local economy, it can also better equip with the multitude of Nepalese youth seeking employment or further education abroad.

Authors

• Krishna Bista, Morgan State University

• Uttam Gaulee, Morgan State University