Education in Nepal: Problems, Reforms and Social Change

Last Updated on Thursday, 26 January 2012 07:05 Friday, 25 March 2011 09:56

Chautari Book Series 55

Editor: Pramod Bhatta
Publisher: Martin Chautari
First Published: 2009
Page 376+, Rs. 400
ISBN: 978-9937-8004-0-4

Book Review
The Kathmandu Post, 30 January 2010
Himal South Asian, Vol. 23, No. 1

This edited volume on Nepal’s education includes scholarly works in the field that have been published in various journals and books inside and outside of Nepal since 1996. The articles in Part 1 deal with the major problems and issues in Nepal’s school education. The articles in Part 2 focus on some of the major reforms implemented in Nepal’s primary education. Finally, the articles in Part 3 look at the broader linkages between education, nationalism and social change. The book will serve as a useful reference in providing a multi-disciplinary view of Nepal’s school education system to both beginners and to those more familiar with the current status of educational research and publications related to Nepal. It also attempts to introduce readers to the variety of research traditions in education and provide some directions for future research.

Pramod Bhatta, PhD, has been involved in various research and evaluations of Nepal’s education sector since 1999. He has written a number of articles on Nepal’s education and co-edited a couple of books. He currently works as a Coordinator of the Education Program at Martin Chautari.

Table of contents

Tables vii
Figures ix
Maps xi
Reprinting Rights Acknowledgements xiii
Preface xv


Introduction
60 Years of Educational Development in Nepal 1
Pramod Bhatta

Part 1: Persisting Problems in School Education
1. Who Goes to School? Educational Stratification by Gender, Caste and Ethnicity in Nepal 19
Sharon Stash and Emily Hannum

2. Disparities in School Performance in the SLC Exams: An Exploratory Analysis 57
Saurav Dev Bhatta

3. Private Schools as Battlefields: Contested Visions of Learning and Livelihood in Nepal 121
Martha Caddell

Part 2: The Reality of Educational Reforms
4. Improving Schools through Decentralization: Observations from Nepal’s Primary Education 151
Pramod Bhatta

5. Necessary but not Sufficient: Challenges to (Implicit) Theories of Educational Change: Reforms in Nepal’s Primary Education System 187
Tirth Khaniya and James H. Williams

6. ‘Empowering’ the ‘Local’ through Education? Exploring Community Managed Schooling in Nepal 215
Stephen Carney, Min Bista and Jytte Agergaard

Part 3: Education, Nationalism and Social Change
7. Ambivalence Denied: The Making of Rastriya Itihas in Panchayat Era Textbooks 247
Pratyoush Onta

8. Schools and the Cultural Production of the Educated Person in a Nepalese Hill Community 295
Debra Skinner and Dorothy Holland

9. Women and Literacy: A Nepal Perspective 333
Anna Robinson-Pant

Notes on Contributors 361
Index 367

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