Abstract
The article explores how educational policy, curricula, textbooks and teaching have translated thinking about Nepal’s relationship with the rest of the world into global education practice in Nepalese schools in contemporary classrooms. Drawing upon the framework of a policy cycle approach, the article addresses the following research questions: What are the key contemporary messages about global education in Nepal within the ‘macro’ context of policy influence? How is the theme of global education communicated through the content of Nepalese textbooks at the ‘meso’ context of policy text production? What are the perceptions of Nepalese social studies teachers with respect to teaching and learning about global education themes at the ‘micro’ context of practice? Qualitative content analysis of textbooks and documents was conducted, while thematic analysis of interview data was undertaken to understand policy objectives and recommendations related to global citizenship education in Nepal. The findings indicate that educational policies primarily aim to socialise and nurture responsible citizens, while textbooks and teaching processes mostly emphasise the acquisition of knowledge. Some recommendations are made as to how the curriculum, textbooks and pedagogical approaches might be adapted to better support Nepalese young people seeing themselves as global citizens.
Highlights
For much of its history, Nepal has been isolated from the rest of the world and from global trends, but even as a landlocked and relatively de-industrialised and agrarian state, Nepal has not been immune from the recent effects of the internet and more mobile populations reducing the world to a global village (Regmi, 2019; Wagle, 2015)
Drawing upon the framework of a policy cycle approach, the article addresses the following research questions: What are the key contemporary messages about global education in Nepal within the ‘macro’ context of policy influence? How is the theme of global education communicated through the content of Nepalese textbooks at the ‘meso’ context of policy text production? What are the perceptions of Nepalese social studies teachers with respect to teaching and learning about global education themes at the ‘micro’ context of practice? Qualitative content analysis of textbooks and documents was conducted, while thematic analysis of interview data was undertaken to understand policy objectives and recommendations related to global citizenship education in Nepal
There was a recognition in the influential Nepal National Education Planning Commission (NNEPC) report as long ago as 1956 that educational approaches in Nepal needed to accommodate the challenges of engaging with the outside world
Summary
For much of its history, Nepal has been isolated from the rest of the world and from global trends, but even as a landlocked and relatively de-industrialised and agrarian state, Nepal has not been immune from the recent effects of the internet and more mobile populations reducing the world to a global village (Regmi, 2019; Wagle, 2015). There was a recognition in the influential Nepal National Education Planning Commission (NNEPC) report as long ago as 1956 that educational approaches in Nepal needed to accommodate the challenges of engaging with the outside world. This was captured in the following prescient statement: We have become part of the world, whether we like it or not. There was a realisation by Nepal’s monarchical leadership that the country could not remain unaffected by a post-Second World War wave of decolonisation and the Cold War context.
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