Education System in Nepal

Beginning from 20th Century Nepal and arriving at 21st Century New Nepal, Education in Nepal has taken a considerable leap on its own. It was a time then, only high-class dignitaries was granted to acquire education. Today all Nepalese has easy access to education be it a student playing video game sitting in his room at urban area like Kathmandu or a student with hoe and spade working on the field in some rural corner of the country. Coming from autocratic regime to federal system, the development and accessibility of education moved along with the stepwise development of nation. It is only because of the priority in education the stakeholders has continuously given along. This development of education in Nepal should be credited to private sectors, public sectors and several international organization.

It is seen that today education in Nepal is highly commercialized. Some state that academic sector should not be commercialized, however, to some extend commercialization brings competition which naturally rises the quality in education. Private institutions do take slightly higher fees that seems to be justified by the quality they deliver. Private sector focus more on the state-of-art facilitated classrooms, scientific equipment, research infrastructure, resourceful library and learning materials, seminars, workshops which adds up to the investment of colleges making the education fairly high compared to public sector colleges.

On the other hand, community and government institutions have been doing great on their own despite the fact that they face lack of funding and improper utilization of budget. "Education for All" policy implemented by the government has made easy access towards education for students regardless of all background, cast, creed, and gender especially in rural areas of Nepal.

Creating an educational environment is not only the responsibility of colleges but Government and its policies is more accountable for it. Nepal is no doubt suitable for making an educational hub, but the policy makers should not limit it to their voice. They must cooperate with the educational sector investors towards its development. The efforts of private institutions should be evaluated and positively attributed. Policy makers must make timely decision, take timely action that secure the investment of the investors. We see that delay in policy formation is obstructing and discouraging the investors in education. Institutions that regulate policies are also not properly functioning in lot of areas, this brings more challenges to private sectors who are working towards betterment of education in Nepal.

Thus now the Government and Policy makers should respect the hardwork of private institutions and ease them with timely policy formation and address their problems. At the same time, government should decentralize educational infrastructures balancing the quality of education in every nook and corner of the nation.

In this edition, we interviewed dignified personalities on what are the new reforms government aims in the educational sector through its policy. Moreover, in the talk with VC of Purbanchal University, we came to know his dissatisfaction with the government for being biased in budget allocation to universities. In Addition to that he states how the untimely policy formation adversely affect the normal functioning of PU affecting the student's career.

Srijan Shah