Higher education in Nepal: Shaking off, shaping up

• In Event: Re-Imagining Higher Education: Cases from Nepal, China, Mexico, Colombia, and the U.S.

Proposal

Higher Education in Nepal: Shaking Off, Shaping Up

This session presents an overview of recently changing Nepalese higher education and envisions an integrated system that mirrors the framework and mission of community colleges. Based on data collected from online survey as well as interviews with higher education leaders from Nepal and beyond regarding the creation of alternative models of higher education, we illustrate how the rapid expansions in higher education in Nepal is demanding the creation of new policies and the possibility of even creating a new system that can accommodate the increasing number of students wanting access to higher education every year. A system of community-based technical and vocational oriented institutions are recommended.

In recent years, the government of Nepal has been working on refining the higher education policy to guide the strategic planning of the higher education system. Reform of higher education has been a high priority for Nepal to help expand access and to enhance the quality of higher education (Bista & Gaulee 2017). The World Bank is playing a major role in assisting Nepal to reform higher education. The World Bank’s Second Higher Education Project (SHEP) had several aims to improve Higher Education (The World Bank 2014).
Nepal's current, post-conflict emphasis is on poverty alleviation, creation of jobs, and strengthening the newly achieved democracy through social harmony. Although significant progress has been made toward providing basic education, higher education is still a distant dream for a staggering majority of qualified youth. Nepalese higher education gross enrolment ratio of 17.11 % is one of the lowest in South Asia (The World Bank 2014). According to the World Bank, there are over 28.51 million people living in Nepal, with a 65.9 percent literacy rate, and classified by gender literacy rates are male 75.1% and female 57.4%.

Current Nepalese education has failed to offer appropriate content knowledge, skills, hands-on training for employment in partnership with local industry and community programs. A large number of college graduates from liberal arts, education, and sciences are unemployed, and many of them have gone to India and Middle-East countries for labor. Over 300,000 people leave Nepal each year to find work, much of it backbreaking labor in Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and India (Khaniya 2007).The establishment of Tri-Chandra College in 1918 marked the beginning of modern higher education in Nepal. Tri-Chandra College was not accessible to the general public, as this college served only elites, mainly to produce bureaucrats for the government or to prepare some for advanced studies in India (Gaulee 2014). An alternative system of higher education in Nepal is needed to overcome high unemployment rate, illiteracy, social-cultural discrimination, gender discrimination, and underprepared manpower in the country. An analysis of the data collected from online survey (250 participants) and interviews (15 administrators/faculty members) will be included in the presentation later.
References
Gaulee, Uttam. 2014. "Higher education in Nepal: Opportunities obscured by internal
challenges." In English language teaching in the twenty first century. Edited by T. Karunakaran. Colombo, Sri Lank: Kumaran Book House.
Bista, Krishna and Gaulee, Uttam. 2017. Re-envisioning community college in Nepal. Springer.
Ministry of Education. 2015. Nepal education in figures: At-a-glance. Government of Nepal, Ministry of Education. Singhadurbar, Kathmandu. Accessed March 8, 2017 from: http://www.moe.gov.np/article/520/nepal-education-in-figures-2015.html
Khaniya, Tirtha R. 2007. New horizons in education in Nepal. Kathmandu, Nepal:
Kishor Kaniya Office Support Service Center.
Raby, Rosalind L., and Valeau, Edward. J. (Eds.) 2009. Community college models: Globalization and higher education reform. Doretch: Netherlands: Springer.

Authors

• Uttam Gaulee, Morgan State University.

• Krishna Bista, MSU School of Education and Urban Studies