Visiting the state-funded schools as part of my academic research often leaves me with a deep anxiety over schools’ deteriorating culture. School culture, a highly valued concept in the academic scholarship globally, has received little attention among academic researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in Nepal. Embodying an underlying set of norms, values, beliefs and practices, school culture constitutes the unwritten rules of how to think, feel and act at school. Just as culture is critical to understanding the dynamics behind any thriving community, organization and business, the daily realities and deep structure of school life hold the key to educational success. Nepali public schools lack such a positive and thriving culture.
At first glance, one can find a big hierarchy and division among the teaching staff at all public schools in Nepal, hindering them from building a culture of congeniality, collaboration and communication. The existing policy of the Ministry of Education has placed public school teachers on different rungs of their career ladder--p ermanent, temporary, Rahat, PCF (appointed to the Per Child Funding quota), local and ECD (Early Childhood Development), with great variations in their salaries and other facilities. The permanent teachers, who consider themselves to be government employees, have better job security and ensured pay and perks compared to other types of teachers. Their ‘permanent’ tag carries a symbolic meaning in terms of identity and power. In most cases, they feel proud to affix the ‘permanent’ tag to their names and designations, whereas others hesitate to disclose their ‘tagged’ identities.
Public school culture
Photo: ei-ie.org
Temporary teachers hold approved government positions, and since the Teachers’ Union has been lobbying for their easy promotion, they feel that they are superior to locally appointed teachers. It is evident from my observation of schools that there has been an artificial gap between the government-funded teachers and locally-appointed ones. Consequently, there has been a lack of collaborative and congenial relationships among staff members, resulting in slim chance of sharing problems and solutions and working together to build a better school.
Rampant political favouritism and nepotism have added to the deterioration of public school culture. The School Management Committee (SMC), a legal decision-making body at the school, has become a local political platform where political elites exercise their authority and make major school decisions in favour of the parties and people close to them.
Currently, as the SMCs are given authority to appoint teachers to various kinds of teaching positions, and as major SMC posts are taken over by local political groups, the political backgrounds of candidates and their proximity to the local power-holders plays a decisive role in the appointment of teachers. Selection of teachers on the sole basis of competencies, merits and qualifications has been rare. Also, there have been increasing instances of bribery and corruption in connection with staff selection. Consequently, most locally-appointed teachers are more accountable to political and power groups than to parents and children.
Public schools also lack the culture of appreciation, reward, and recognition. There are always a good number of dedicated and innovative teachers at every school, but they are not able to live up to a high moral standards, or be motivated to perform better, as their hard work is rarely appreciated or rewarded. This results in a growing sense of frustration amongst the hardworking and professionally competent teachers. Some teachers, who are often irregular and less dedicated to their duty, get off easy if they maintain a good relationship with the head teacher and local power-holders.
With a greater fragmentation among staff members, there has been a lack of shared vision and shared sense of purpose. There are negative norms around improvement and learning, as a majority of the school staff blame the children for not learning, and the parents for not properly caring for and guiding their children. In such a toxic school culture, the tradition of celebrating student success is conspicuous by absence. In most schools, the symbols and artefacts regarding positive characteristics of the school, school mascots, slogans, and mottos are not displayed prominently, and nor are students’ works displayed anywhere in the school. As good seeds grow in a good environment, public schools in Nepal need to build a positive, congenial, professional, and vibrant culture, with a greater focus on a policy of appreciating and rewarding dedicated and innovative teachers, a continuous professional development of teaching staff, and above all, keeping schools out of partisan politics.
The author is lecturer in the Central Department of Education, Tribhuvan University
peshalk@gmail.com
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