Posted by: Vivant June 9, 2014
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Evanescence,
Your words, my sentiments. A few thoughts come to mind after reading your piece. Some of these dwell in a different realm from what you talk about , but I felt it might be worth sharing nonetheless.
- By 'our' I assume you mean Nepal's. It is a shame how Nepal's education system, particularly it's public education system, has devolved into shambles. The biggest issues facing the system are funding, training and management - the lack thereof. Even if we had the best syllabi that promoted critical thinking and creativity, we don't have the fundamental educational infrastructure to support it.
- In Nepal's private, for-profit schools are in pretty bad shape too. With the exception of a very few schools, the vast majority of them just sell dreams of an English-medium education and better marks in the SLC to naive parents. The results they deliver are a far cry from the promises they have pedaled. Many Kathmandu-educated high school graduates have a poor command of English. Mostly spoken but even written too. This goes for graduates from the supposedly top tier schools as well.
- Where our private schools do well are in quantitative subjects like maths and physics. That is largely because of an early and rigorous focus on these areas. In this case, Nepal's SLC curriculum is several notches above India's CBSE or ICSE. And miles ahead of the US. In the long run, this is a good thing for a country like Nepal where we need people and investments in hard technology, but, beyond a point, as you allude to, it is not enough.
- The focus on the sciences is largely driven by socio-economic factors. A career in medicine, engineering and now computer sciences has been a ticket out of poverty for hundreds of thousands of Nepalese. And even if you are not poor, people think working in those fields will allow you to maintain the income levels of your parents and stay in the middle class.
- Speaking of income, the commoditization of education is also a big contributor to the arts and languages getting step-motherly treatment. It is a global problem and you can see it in the US as well. The focus is all on business studies. A $100K MBA or law degree is seen as an investment to be recouped - both by students and the banks financing their loans. Good luck with that if you have an MFA or PHd in the languages or the arts. The whole purpose of education has become earning money. Knowledge is seen as a commodity that can be bought and sold. In school and beyond.
- The solution lies in democratizing education and breaking down both horizontal and vertical barriers to education and career growth. The IT industry in the US is a good example of that where graduates are sourced from several disciplines. I also feel continuous education should be encouraged, if not required, by companies and governments where people are going back to school to recharge themselves academically every couple of years - all they way till they retire. Only in such a case, might people put more than a monetary value to their education.
Just some thoughts.
Your words, my sentiments. A few thoughts come to mind after reading your piece. Some of these dwell in a different realm from what you talk about , but I felt it might be worth sharing nonetheless.
- By 'our' I assume you mean Nepal's. It is a shame how Nepal's education system, particularly it's public education system, has devolved into shambles. The biggest issues facing the system are funding, training and management - the lack thereof. Even if we had the best syllabi that promoted critical thinking and creativity, we don't have the fundamental educational infrastructure to support it.
- In Nepal's private, for-profit schools are in pretty bad shape too. With the exception of a very few schools, the vast majority of them just sell dreams of an English-medium education and better marks in the SLC to naive parents. The results they deliver are a far cry from the promises they have pedaled. Many Kathmandu-educated high school graduates have a poor command of English. Mostly spoken but even written too. This goes for graduates from the supposedly top tier schools as well.
- Where our private schools do well are in quantitative subjects like maths and physics. That is largely because of an early and rigorous focus on these areas. In this case, Nepal's SLC curriculum is several notches above India's CBSE or ICSE. And miles ahead of the US. In the long run, this is a good thing for a country like Nepal where we need people and investments in hard technology, but, beyond a point, as you allude to, it is not enough.
- The focus on the sciences is largely driven by socio-economic factors. A career in medicine, engineering and now computer sciences has been a ticket out of poverty for hundreds of thousands of Nepalese. And even if you are not poor, people think working in those fields will allow you to maintain the income levels of your parents and stay in the middle class.
- Speaking of income, the commoditization of education is also a big contributor to the arts and languages getting step-motherly treatment. It is a global problem and you can see it in the US as well. The focus is all on business studies. A $100K MBA or law degree is seen as an investment to be recouped - both by students and the banks financing their loans. Good luck with that if you have an MFA or PHd in the languages or the arts. The whole purpose of education has become earning money. Knowledge is seen as a commodity that can be bought and sold. In school and beyond.
- The solution lies in democratizing education and breaking down both horizontal and vertical barriers to education and career growth. The IT industry in the US is a good example of that where graduates are sourced from several disciplines. I also feel continuous education should be encouraged, if not required, by companies and governments where people are going back to school to recharge themselves academically every couple of years - all they way till they retire. Only in such a case, might people put more than a monetary value to their education.
Just some thoughts.