Journal of Education and Research

1-6

Authors: Rebat Kumar Dhakal

N/A

24-38

Authors: Joseph Seyram Agbenyega

Education for rural transformation requires a critical analysis and appraisal of policies and education programmes, and skills development that can lead to the creation of sustainable jobs for rural people. This paper will examine and analyze how inclusion or exclusion manifests for rural people, and will do so with Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-critical theoretical framework that provides a three pronged (Habitus, Capital and Field), but unified approach that can be utilized to theorize education for rural transformation. Bourdieu draws our attention to three interactive ways of conceptualizing and understanding inclusion, exclusion, marginalization, disadvantage and transformation via: 1) the objective, physical, outright rejection in community due to the ways individuals are positioned and named in that community (field); 2) overt or covert denial of social, economic and cultural goods (capital), and 3) the inside subjective world, the space of thought, mind, attitudes, idea and interiority, which Bourdieu referred to as habitus (Bourdieu, 1990, 1996, 1998 & 1999). The paper provides a socio-critical framework for educators of how to work with rural people to enhance their living standards.

54-71

Authors: Harbans Singh Bhola

To engage meaningfully on the subject of “Education for Rural Transformation, ”it is essential first to understand the concept of the “Rural Condition” as well as of “Education” -- which is influenced by social, economic, political, technological and cultural factors. There are two additional complexities in that the “Rural Condition” itself is not something stable and absolute but is indeed in perpetual flux across Time and Place; and that the rural condition is inconceivable without at the same time understanding the “Urban Condition.” Concomitantly, “Education” itself will have to undergo transformation to serve as the lever of rural and urban transformations. Rural and urban transformations today have come to acquire one globally-focused mission, dealing with three objectives: mitigation of global warming, pursuing sustainable development and committing to poverty alleviation, in both rural and urban habitations. For “Planned Action” informed by the general conceptual framework constructed here, the general must be contextualized in each particular setting of time, space and locality – responding to a specific “Political Economy”; to policy processes such as formulation, planning, mobilization, implementation and evaluation; and configurations of agents and adopters of planned actions. Finally, the “Logic of Action” must come from the dialectics between the structural and the instructional.

87-101

Authors: Tanka Nath Sharma

The main purpose of this paper is to document the potential contributions of the community learning centers in the process of rural transformation and explore how formal, non-formal and informal education are blended for capital formation, empowerment and self-sufficiency of the rural communities. Discussions and arguments presented in this paper are based on secondary sources supplemented by a field-based case study. Nepal’s rural communities over the years are facing poverty, deprivation and ignorance. Education and skills for life are particularly important to combat rural poverty and deprivation by developing the capacity of rural people to take advantage of available opportunities for reducing economic and non-economic poverty. Community learning centers (CLCs) as the local educational institutions outside the formal structure, can create various learning options and opportunities, responding to the diverse needs of the rural communities living in a complex situation. Referring to a case study, the paper has advocated that CLCs can be instrumental in rural transformation by offering diverse programs in education and community services such as: early childhood care and development, good quality primary education for all children, second chance basic education for youth, literacy and post-literacy programs, women education program, vocational skill development, income-generating programs and community development services for improving the quality of life of rural people. The paper further suggested that CLC has potential to offer assistance to the students of local schools in improving their academic achievement and to serve as a local institutional base offering technology-based open and distance learning opportunities and engage rural people in lifelong learning and continuing education.

1-5

Authors: Mahesh Nath Parajuli

N/A

24 - 3 8

Authors: Sadruddin Bahadur Qutoshi; Tikaram Poudel

Assuming the effectiveness of the student-centered approach to teaching, this study explores the perceptions of purposefully selected seven students and teachers from a community school in Karachi about this pedagogical approach. Using interviews and observations of classroom practices as methodological tools, we concentrate on finding answers to the questions: How does student-centered approach to teaching used in community schools in Pakistan contribute to achieving quality education? How does this approach affect teaching and learning activities? How does this approach facilitate teachers to overcome the problems of teaching and learning? The findings of this study identify that student-centered approach to teaching encourages students‟ engagement in teaching-learning activities focusing on individual interaction to achieve common objectives. However, inadequate resources, small sized classrooms, and lack of expertise on the part of teachers were the challenges to the teaching-learning activities in the community schools. These findings would be valuable to teaching and learning communities and educational policymakers as well.

58-76

Authors: Ellen Carm

UNESCO (2005) launched the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014, and as we now proceed into the final year of that decade there is a time for asking whose development? That question heavily relies upon what type of education, which again leads to aspects concerning epistemological lenses. I am using my experiences and research from two totally different assignments; an evaluation of a post-literacy and skills program in rural Laos, and the other aimed at developing and implementing a localized approach to HIV/AIDS education in Zambia. The outcomes from the two interventions revealed that in order to initiate and sustain change and development, it was crucial to ensure the inclusion and merger of multiple knowledge systems, science and traditional knowledge. That requires a focus on how. In other words, the processes we put in place to ensure the recognition and merger of different epistemologies are crucial to ensure sustained local development. The paper briefly discusses key concepts related to multiple knowledge systems, education for sustainable development, and different conceptualization of learning and teaching methods, and explores how environmental education can contribute to sustainable development. The last section illustrates how expansive learning can be applied as a method and a tool to analyze the processes at stake, and outcomes of participatory and inclusive interventions. The paper elaborates on the methodology and shows how a multi-voiced approach can bridge the gap between different epistemologies, e.g. Indigenous Knowledge and Western Knowledge, create space for interaction and negotiations among a diverse group of stakeholders and actors to reach to the local innovations and development activities.

93-108

Authors: Manju Narula

In India, the National Minority Commission has identified Muslims as minorities along with Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains on the basis of religion. Out of these religious minorities, Muslims are the largest ones. In spite of being the largest minority, they are lagging behind in education in comparison with other religious minorities. Literacy which is the first step to education is lowest of the Muslim minority and inter-state variation in their literacy rates is also very high. Also, their literacy rate in some of the states is abysmally low. In the light of these contexts, this paper presents a brief discussion of policies and programs implemented for the development of education of the Muslim minority. Thereafter, the paper tries to portray the progress of school education in terms of access, participation, retention of Muslim children in the Muslim concentrated states. The paper suggests that strategies for their educational development should be adopted according to the need of the state/district/area. Finally, the areas of intervention and challenges are discussed and appropriate measures are suggested to improve and promote the education of Muslims in India.

1-3

Authors: Mahesh Nath Parajuli

N/A

15 - 38

Authors: Shashidhar Belbase

A teacher‟s belief plays a significant role in the quality of teaching mathematics. In a fictive way, I changed my role from a researcher to a research participant in an imaginative interview. My interior other (David)interviewed me as a researcher. A single interview session was held lasting for about three hours. The interview text was used for the analysis and interpretation using the grounded theory method. I invented a substantive theory of my beliefs about teaching geometric transformations with Geometer's Sketchpad. The theory is “reflexive abstraction of my beliefs about teaching Geometric Transformations with Geometer‟s Sketchpad” as a personal theory characterized by some basic categories of - beliefs about the advancement of pedagogy, beliefs about pedagogical environment, beliefs about the role of students‟ and teacher, beliefs about self as a future teacher, beliefs about teaching-learning activities, and beliefs about transitions in teaching learning. I reconstructed a synthesis of the characteristics of these beliefs. While constructing these layers of interpretive accounts, I used radical constructivist grounded theory as a theoretical base.

59 - 76

Authors: Narayan Prasad Kafle

This paper explicates the contextually embedded meaning of being middle level leaders in the Nepali institutional schools. Using in-depth interview and protocol writing as the means of data generation, this article unearths the experience of three middle-level leaders. Distributed leadership theory (Spillane, 2006) and its constructs of leadership plus aspect and leadership practice aspect provide the theoretical lens to unveil the myths and realities of being middle-level leaders. All three participants shared their common acknowledgement about the significance and sensitivity of middle-level leadership roles for school administration and effectiveness. Individual essence of being a middle-level leader was contingent on the very context where they worked. Their feelings of being relegated and marginalized, helplessness or high exhilaration were subjects to the contextual reality.

96 - 116

Authors: Suresh Gautam; Bal Chandra Luitel

In this paper, we argue that research paradigms arising from the Western Modern Worldview (WMW) orient research enterprise to serve metaphysics of presence (positive evidence), propositional, deductive and analytical genre and logics (Luitel, 2003), thereby privileging knowing as misappropriating local knowledge system. When the WMW fails to understand the connectedness within local worldviews, they are like colonization. Many researches are taken for granted to put all in boxes creating a dualism of the West (colonized) and non-West (decolonized). However, the dualism of the West and the Resthardly recognizes the multiple realities of the local people. In so doing, we envision Third Space Research Methodology where we can realize the importance of both the West and the Rest drawing from their best practices. Developing such a methodology allows all voices to be heard but take precedence over the indigenous/local voice rather than the voice of the researchers. This is why, we suggest a Third Space (Mokshya - an interest of eancipation) methodology through breaking the hierarchies of the West and the local. We use a metaphor of Mokshya describing the Eastern (Hindu/Baudhhist /Jain/Sikhs) epistemic view to be aware of the colonial and decolonial parameters of research.

1-5

Authors: Mahesh Nath Parajuli

N/A

24-40

Authors: Karen Synne Groven; Gunn Engelsrud

Phenomenology, according to Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, looks at human beings in the world. Drawing on their perspective, one could argue that inter-subjectivity, like a researcher’s subjectivity, should be explicitly acknowledged in phenomenological studies. In the following pages, we explore how using this approach can make findings more transparent and trustworthy. This study is based on a review of five articles focused on subjectivity and inter-subjectivity in phenomenological studies. In addition, we draw on the first author ’s experiences as a PhD candidate studying to become a “phenomenological” researcher. Our findings reveal that reflecting explicitly on bodily subjectivity during the research process can reveal connections between the context of the interview, how the material is created socially and textually and how the researcher utilized information from her own body in the interpretation of the material. This, in turn, is likely to make the findings more inter-subjective and transparent, and thus more trustworthy and valid. Our findings point to the value of letting one’s own bodily experiences “count” in the process of determining how to explore the phenomena in question. Although the literature offers guidelines, each project and each researcher is unique. In this light, personal reflections are likely to highlight the value of critically engaging – and making explicit – the researcher’s own experiences, both during and after the interview process.

52-64

Authors: Binod Krishna Shrestha

There is no information on what exactly quality is as perceived by the public as the potential recipients of education programs to guide policymakers to deliver quality. This study explored the determinants of quality of education program as perceived by the public. This study is important because a quality concept starts from customers according to which the providers should develop their programs. Following the theory of customers’ perceptions, this study assessed stakeholders’ beliefs about the quality of education program rather than the objective reality that organizations offer as quality education. Through a survey of about 220 respondents and corresponding data analysis, this study found out the determinants of perceived quality of education with special reference to MBA programs in Nepal. The variables included in this study were quality of faculty, quality of infrastructure, graduate employability, curriculum and reputation as antecedents of perceived quality and perceived value. This study found out that perceived quality is determined by the reputation of the program as credible and trustworthy which is influenced by graduate employability, practical curriculum, and competent faculty.

75-91

Authors: Kashi Raj Pandey

While writing and reading have certain specific uses in the broader aspect of life and cultural practices, this paper focuses on improving a researcher’s practice as a teacher and learner in inclusiveness, multiplicity, multiculturalism, and possibility of various perspectives in any given contexts. Taking auto-ethnography as a methodological referent in writing narratives, that deals with my own and students’ lived experiences about journaling and its impact on transformation, this research looks into the dialectical nature of knowing through reflection about self practices whilst taking the cultural context of teaching in multiple perspectives. Responding to a number of questions including how a habit of maintaining journal helps the practitioner in cherishing multicultural thoughts, this work is equally a room that tries to find answers to the research question-- When and how do the learners realize a need for cross-cultural understanding? Along with participants’ narratives and other related theories this paper also covers the researcher’s encounter with Dr. Inspection, and a letter to the Subject Committee. In addition, an acrostic poem and a Haiku also give the picturesque of the ongoing discourse among teachers and students, teachers and management and management and students in any educational institutions being Mount Kailash University (MKU)1, a prototype.

iii

Authors: Laxman Gnawali

N/A

9-16

Authors: Stefan Gross

Emancipation has lost its charisma. In the 1960s, the term had been one of the saviour-concepts in the educational debate on social inequality and the political function of pedagogy in Western countries. Nowadays, as the discussion is still ongoing, the word is rarely in use. Overloaded with political enmeshments and a plurality of meanings, emancipation seems to be nothing more than a nearly forgotten relict of an ancient time. How could this rise and fall happen? The present essay is tracing the colourful history of emancipation in various contexts, recapitulating its pedagogical importance in the 1960s and discovering how the pillars have kept their primary function, although the word is not in use any longer.

30-34

Authors: Bidya Nath Koirala

For decolonizers language is a tool of domination (Awasthi, 2004; Bourdieu, 1977); for language groups it is a subjectivity and inter-subjectivity (Koirala, 2007); for utilitarian it is a vehicle to take people from the local to the global world (Khadka, 2007); for knowledge seekers and promoters it is a means to generate the hidden treasure of the subalterns’ wisdom (Guha, 2005); for linguists’ it is a way to save language (Khadka et.al., 2006; Khadka, 2007); for activists it is a means to activate people (Yonjan, 2007); for existentialists language is the socio-political, cultural, and linguistic identity (CRED, 2005; Chirag, 2001), and for pedagogues it is a means to made easy and dignified learning (Mallikarjun, 2002). It means language is the response to the situatedness (Leve & Wegner, 1992). To resolve these concerns one needs language of co-existence, reciprocal learning and teaching. Nepal has more than hundred languages with 15 scripts (Khadka, Magar, & Koirala, 2006; Koirala, Khadka, & Magar, 2008). Muslim children for example should learn at least three scripts together, the Urdu, the Devnagari, and the English. This situation looks for shared script.

44-51

Authors: Saraswoti Bharati; Hosokawa Takao

This paper aims to provide an insight in policy making for further development in primary education sector. It is based on a field study conducted in Talku Dudhechaur village during September – October, 2008 to analyze the role of parents in schooling in rural area. The study showed that in spite of low economic and education level of the family, there is an increased demand and desire for schooling. However, about half of the parents’ attitude towards schooling is still negligent, due to lack of willingness and determination. This confirmed that the establishment of free primary education is not a sufficient solution. Instead making primary education compulsory and involving parents in school education more closely is an urgent need. In addition, compulsory birth registration and implementing modest laws and duty are also required to ensure the change in schooling pattern.

59-66

Authors: Shreeram Lamichhane; Tanka Nath Sharma

The complex theory calls for probing a given context in a holistic manner because the isolationist approach is less likely to produce authentic knowledge of the reality. It is also important to perceive the nature of connectivities in all spheres of human existence. Once we put a motion in our lives essentially we need to act with the understanding that there exist robust connections between human existence and numerous existence-related variables. This article attempts to dig out the inexorable connection between university and industry. Neither of these two constituents accumulates energy if left to function in isolation. Rather a mutual reinforcement between them is most likely to stimulate a powerful flow of synergy which will empower both of them to enjoy a win-win situation. To this end, a sharing modality between university and industry is what this article attempts to focus on.