School Education in Nepal: History & Politics of Governance & Reforms

Price: NRs. 699/-

Editors:Lokranjan Parajuli, Devendra Uprety, Pratyoush Onta
Pages:x+402
Edition:First reprint 2025 (2082 v.s.)
Published Date:16.10.2025
ISBN:978-9937-594-26-4

Chautari Book Series - 105

School Education in Nepal: History and Politics of Governance and Reforms charts the efforts of the various regimes since the Ranas to “school” the people of Nepal and the politics behind those initiatives. It also looks at the policies and regulations that govern the school sector. The book contains ten chapters divided in four major sections corresponding with the following political periods in recent Nepali history: pre-Panchayat (pre 1960), Panchayat (1960–1990), democratic (1990–2015) and the federal transition years (post 2015). The chapters provide a basic historico-political context to understand the complexities, the roles of various actors and factors in the development of school education in Nepal, as well as the consequences of the politics and policies, intended or otherwise, of such education. The book is especially useful for a younger cohort of researchers doing work on Nepal’s school education from a variety of social science disciplines.

Contents

Reprinting Rights Acknowledgments - vii
Preface - ix
Introduction

The Politics of Educating the Public: A Brief Historical Sketch - 1
Lokranjan Parajuli and Pratyoush Onta

The Early Years (Pre 1960)

From Controlling Access to Crafting Minds: An Experiment in Education in Late Rana Nepal - 35
Lokranjan Parajuli
Origins of the Faith: The Untold Story of Hugh Wood, American Development Assistance in the 1950s, and Nepal’s Modern Education System - 71
Jeremy Rappleye

Panchayat Period (1960–1990)
Schools as an Arena of Struggle: Reexamining the Panchayat Era Politics of Education - 115
Lokranjan Parajuli
Ambivalence Denied: The Making of Rastriya Itihas in Panchayat Era Textbooks - 157
Pratyoush Onta

Democratic Period (1990–2015)
Community Schooling in Nepal: A Genealogy of Education Reform since 1990 - 209
Stephen Carney and Min Bahadur Bista
The World Bank, Community Schooling, and School-based Management: A Political Economy of Educational Decentralization in Nepal - 241
Tejendra Pherali
Public Desire for Private Schooling in Nepal - 263
Pramod Bhatta
Teachers’ Unions in School Education Governance: Experiences from Post-2000 Nepal - 291
Devendra Uprety

Federal Transition Years (Post 2015)
Making Education Policy Choices in a Climate of Uncertainties: A Case Study from Nepal - 325
Labisha Uprety
Free Education? Blurred Public-Private Boundaries in State-run Schooling in Nepal - 363
Uma Pradhan and Karen Valentin

Notes on Contributors - 389
Index - 393

Reviews

Reviewed by Jeevan R. Sharma in European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 61, 2023.
https://martinchautari.org.np/storage/files/ebhr-1926.pdf

Reviewed by Niranjan Kunwar in Studies in Nepali History and Society 27(1), 2022.
martinchautari.org.np/storage/files/sinhas-vol27-no1-book-review-niranjan-kunwar.pdf

समीक्षक, महेश्वर आचार्य हिमालखबर ३०(९), २०७९ ।
martinchautari.org.np/blogs/the-detailed-description-of-educational-governance

Reviewed by Werner Menski in South Asia Research 43(2), 2023.
martinchautari.org.np/blogs/book-review-school-education-in-nepal-history-and-politics-of-governance-and-reforms

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