One fine morning, I decided to ask the school principal if he had plans to add a playground. An overpowering stench of rotting garbage, a stone’s throw away, still hung in the air when I entered the school. Parents in their masked faces hurriedly came and left. After stammering an apology, I asked the principal, “Please, sir, do you have plans for playground?” He was plucking out hairs from his nostrils when he suddenly jerked his hand away and said pointing toward a pigeon-invaded, hazardous building, “Yes, we are expanding.” I nodded my head and moved away without further questions.
An electric pole stood next to a tree, leaning against the wall of the school building. In close proximity was a butcher’s shop and heavy construction going on. The wires were so close to the tree and building that even a faintest clash of twigs could have sparked off electric shock. The school’s dismal physical infrastructure in itself stands as a testimony of Nepal’s weak school regulations. In their mad rush to make money, many Nepali businessmen are opening private schools, most notably in the capital Kathmandu, described by Nepali historians Bhuwan Lal Joshi and Leo Rose as a ‘sanctuary of Nepali elites’ and administration center, which reflect this nightmarish condition. And these schools, to gain popularity, carry all weird names borrowed from Western schools.
In recent years, education has become a commodity that is being bought and sold, exported and imported like any other product. No matter how big or small a country is, or how poor and developed, this trend has affected everyone. An example from Nepal illustrates the growing trend toward commercialization of education. While proliferation of private educational institutions in itself is not harmful, they are behaving more like markets and are increasingly driven by profit motives. There is a fear that educational institutions and their values may indeed be for sale as the government is pulling back from its role of providing both funds and leadership for education.
Unbridled privatization and influence of economic forces or businesses on educational institutions will have insidious effects on the nation in transition. If unchecked, this could be harmful and dangerous to an underdeveloped country like Nepal.
Privatization and commercialization emerged primarily due to the worldwide integration of economies following the triumph of liberal capitalism as the dominant economic mode. This trend has been further exacerbated by the forces of globalization, which many argue is creating a borderless economy and eradication of economic nationalism.
Globalization also stands for global governance and the demise of the nation state. In its full-blown form, globalization predicts the end of the national economy and the end of the nation-state. In the field of education, globalization signifies reduced roles of the state and a steady decline of public funding in education. Thus, the transition from national ‘walled’ and regional economies toward global ‘free’ trade and markets is giving rise to mushrooming private and commercial education institutions.
Educational response to globalization is seen in Nepal in the form of finance-driven reforms, which is mostly concerned with reduction of public funding on higher education and shift of state resources to basic and primary education. Since the Jomtien’s Education for All (EFA) conference in 1990, many donors advocate this line of thinking that has come to shape their lending policies in many developing and less developed countries, including Nepal.
No doubt, globalization has many positive impacts on a transitional society like Nepal; it tends to lower public spending on education and increases private for-profit educational institutions. The for-profit private institutions lead to commercialization of education with severe consequences for marginalized and poor.
For many Nepali entrepreneurs, schools have become hot commodities to accumulate profit. Anybody can open a school or hospital anywhere, of any size. Persons without qualification can become the principals and tutors in these schools. Educational certificates are readily available for them at a price in the neighboring Indian state of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Commercial colleges, which often advertise heavily, promising quick jobs and career training to students, have become a reality in recent years around the country. Profit has been the main driving force and attraction of these schools and colleges. The academic ideals and the purpose of education have been compromised by accepting these principles for the sake of money. As articulated in the ongoing tenth plan, one of the main objectives laid down by Nepal in higher education is to increase cost-sharing. The policy is clearly toward increasing share of private players in education. Profit-seeking can make schools and colleges less accessible to poor and the marginalized communities in Nepal, which constitute a large segment of population.
Just as academic institutions price their education program beyond the reach of many students in order to earn a greater profit, so also can they retard scientific progress in order to maximize their income. A look at Tribhuvan University in Nepal suggests that the academic staff is also engaged in commercial pursuits. Its teachers engage in part time jobs, projects and earning outside the campus, suggesting that they are driven by financial interest and the university is devoid of any research activities.
Even if there are some research activities such as the one undertaken by the Center for Educational Research Innovation and Development, a research wing of the University, they are not independent because they are funded by external agencies such as the World Bank, UNDP and other private agencies. The researchers in the university are also hired by these donors on individual basis as they tend to go where the money is highest. There will be innumerable problems with education in the coming years as there is little or no regulation to control commercialization. Instead, the government overburdened with financial constraints is talking in terms of ‘public-private partnerships’ or ‘cost-sharing’, which appears to have been a policy borrowed from the World Bank, in meeting the educational needs of the population. Unfortunately, this will further promote private and commercially-oriented education in the country.
nitya.n.timsina@gmail.com
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