During a recent conversation about education in Nepal here in New York City, a fairly informed fellow Nepali essentially argued that public schools are a thing of the past. So I asked him what percentage of students he believes goes to community schools in Nepal. He said 25 percent. The actual proportion is above 80 percent!Among "city people" like that gentleman, the belief that "almost everyone's children now go to private schools" seems widespread. And that is disturbing because such blurred vision or willful disregard of reality also underscores educational policies. While our educational experts and policymakers certainly know the statistics, they seem similarly insensitive to the vast majority of poor people around the country who can't afford private schools. Even worse, the general premise for everyone's strange attraction to "private" schools is that these schools are inherently superior. Good private schools are being praised for the wrong reasons and the rest are selling snake oil. And if that is the direction that we are headed as a nation, may the Lord Pashupatinath help us.
In another conversation, another gentleman (who had higher formal education) argued that the most capable professionals and leaders in Nepal now were products of private schools. That is another dangerous argument: schools produce many or few talented students not because of their private/public status but because of the quality of education on offer. Wherever private schools produce more talented students, it is a coincidence; wherever they don't, and far too many don't, they are not blamed for being private. The worst thing about this equally widespread belief is that most of those who attend public schools have internalized an inferiority complex.
But while that belief could become a self-fulfilling prophecy for many in public schools, a sense of superiority doesn't necessarily lead to success for students in private schools. Too many come out mediocre when judged independently. Just visit the playground of any private school (outside of the handful in Kathmandu and a few other cities) and listen to the English they speak. I call it the "what-like what-like" English, not just littered with Nepali words but also using Nepali syntax that no one outside their creole community can understand.
Private schools—or at least those that we see in the cities where we do most of our writing and policymaking about education for the rest of the country—may look like an inherently good idea. And because those who come out of it seem more successful, it is easy to forget that their success had little to do with the schools being private. Even if the public schools were somehow made affordable for everyone's children, there is an insidious consequence of the strange attraction to private schools.
Yes, private schools may be run by private owners who have a direct stake in the success of these schools. Private schools may not allow politicization. They may hold teachers responsible and they may optimize resources. But the problem is with the idea that private schools are by definition English medium. That's a dangerous slope on which the entire society has been sliding down for some time now. And no educational policy or development seems to be aimed at correcting this course.
According to some reports from past few years, district education officers are encouraging their constituent schools to switch to English in order to "improve" education. These leaders of education are either delusional about effects of education in English or they are ignorant about basic issues of education. Switching to English without ensuring that existing teachers can continue to teach effectively in the new language is a recipe for disaster for public sector education.
But the most puzzling is how and why even education experts still advocate for English medium without considering the dangers of switching to a foreign language without necessary preparations—or considering if that kind of preparation is possible or even necessary. In reality, as the famous scholar of applied linguistics, Alan Davies, who served Nepal early in his career and died this past September, said: the ideology of English medium was created by the upper middle class that used to send their children to Darjeeling. English as a class-marker wasn't available in Nepal until the 1980s. The entire idea of "private" schools as "English medium"—which is no more logical than their name "boarding"—is a blatant but highly marketable lie. The fact that it is marketable doesn't make it a better idea for the general masses—and, indeed, it isn't helping most of the teachers and students in private schools themselves (outside of a few in big cities). Teachers don't teach well in English, students don't learn well in it.
So where are we today in terms of educational policy? What policies have been developed in light of the historical changes in the body politic? What, for instance, is the new policy that addresses the impending changes in our administrative regions? How are public institutions of education, from bottom to top, going to function in the non-Kathmandu-centric structures?
Around a month ago, I scoured all the news items and reports that I could find from Nepal for some clues. No luck. I found a few ministerial speeches in the news, but those reports had little or no substance beyond repeating bromides about quality education. No agency seemed to be in charge of the new educational policies and practices that the country will need.
Yes, changes have been made in how we administer SLC exams, and we have now switched to the grading system. While this may solve the problem of centralization that put students from Jumla in the same race against students in Kathmandu, there is no indication that the new assessment is based on or aligned with better curriculum and teaching. At the university level, the shift to semester system is similarly problematic: simply splitting the academic year into two parts will not a new educational culture make!
On the broader and national scale, where, indeed, are we? And where are we headed?
The author is an assistant professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Stony Brook University (State University of New York)
ghanashyam.sharma@stonybrook.edu
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