Educational Change; Nepal’s need

The Nepali education system, I believe should opt for a radical change if it were to provide quality education.

Modern education, to me, is more than three hour exams that is, in the end, useless. Useless because those three hours fail to know our understanding of the topic. Why? The reason is simple, education, now no longer should be measured in the number a student scores on their three hour test. That’s because the three hour test can never know what we’ve learnt throughout the year. Rather, it judges what and how much we know about the asked question. Education is what you learn and use for your survival, the definition in its true sense.

What should be done then?

Nepali curriculum developers should, first and foremost keep pace with the time. Books that we study in our schools were long studied by our teachers. Those books are probably insignificant to us. The same applies to college, undergraduate and graduate level.

In the English Literature course, students are still taught Shakespeare and Milton. The last contemporary novelist we study is George Orwell. What benefit does it give to the students? Probably none for the fact that none of their circumstances and society seem similar to that of now.

After course revision, curriculum developers should focus on enhancing the student’s critical and creative thinking. Questions should no longer be “What did Ram eat in lunch”. It rather should be “Why did Ram eat a certain type or lunch rather than ordinary one?” Focusing on creative, critical and analytical thinking ability helps students explore and answer a certain question. It also increases their logics. Furthermore, its high time that teachers should ask students to use their untouched faculty of mind; the critical, creative and analytical.

With it, developers, to me, should also focus on peer learning. Peer learning is much effective than lecture method. Peers can share their ideas casually making the most out of it. However, it is a tragedy that students, in the name of peer learning, most of the time use it as a means to gossip!

Enabling students to learn ways to cope with their surroundings and their future is another thing our curriculum developers could look at. To do this, the current system should turn topsy-turvy; the present theoretical part should be reduced from 70 to 30, and that of practical should be increased from 30 to 70. This reversal could benefit students because they will learn to implement the learnt things. And because they are likely to come across obstacles during the implementation, they will learn something on their own; they’ll develop their problem solving skills! Quite helpful huh?

Here, I’d like to mention a cliché, a chariot doesn’t move with one wheel. It also needs the other. If curriculum developers are one wheel, teachers and students, are the other. Teachers should be taught about effective teaching methods and develop the art of rhetoric. They should be able to use words in the most astounding manner so as to captivate their student’s attention. In the lack of teaching style, students are well likely to be bored and stay dull. Likewise, students should also welcome the teacher’s move. Teachers could feel humiliated if students do not appreciate their efforts. These changes should not seek a journey’s time. Rather it should be spontaneous, and radical, right from today.

I believe that these changes should be brought into consideration. It could propel a newer generation of students who are not just judged on the marks they score, but rather from their critical, analytical and creative faculty of their minds which accustoms itself to different terrains in the least of time. However, until then, it’s the same old story where the teacher asks, “What did Ram eat in his lunch,” to which the students promptly reply, “Ram ate bread and apple juice in his lunch”!