NepalEDUCATION, NEPAL
A house in the Makalu area of the Mountain Region, near Khandbari
Courtesy Linda Galantin
An open dwelling in Thumlingstar
Courtesy Linda Galantin
Education under Rana Rule
The Rana rulers, who placed Nepal under their feudal
yoke for
about 100 years until the beginning of the 1950s, feared
an
educated public. This fear also was held by Prime Minister
Chandra
Shamsher Rana, who established Tri-Chandra College in 1918
and
named it after himself. During the inauguration of the
college,
Chandra Shamsher lamented that its opening was the
ultimate death
knell to Rana rule. He personally felt responsible for the
downfall
of Rana rule, and his words became prophetic for the
crumbling of
Rana political power in 1950-51.
The privileged access of members of the higher castes
and
wealthier economic strata to education was for centuries a
distinguishing feature of society. The Ranas kept
education the
exclusive prerogative of the ruling elite; the rest of the
population remained largely illiterate. The Ranas were
opposed to
any form of public schooling for the people, although they
emphasized formal instruction for their own children to
prepare
them for a place in the government.
The founder of the Rana regime, Jang Bahadur Kunwar,
later
known as Jang Bahadur Rana, decided to give his children
an English
education rather than the traditional religiously oriented
training. In 1854 Jang Bahadur engaged an English tutor to
hold
classes for his children in the Rana palace. This act
tipped the
balance in favor of English education and established its
supremacy
over the traditional type of Sanskrit-based education. In
1991
English education still carried a higher status and
prestige than
did traditional education.
Jang Bahadur's successor opened these classes to all
Rana
children and formally organized them into Durbar High
School. A
brief shift in government education policy came in 1901,
when Prime
Minister Dev Shamsher Rana took office and called for
sweeping
education reforms. He proposed a system of universal
public primary
education, using Nepali as the language of instruction,
and opening
Durbar High School to children who were not members of the
Rana
clan. Dev Shamsher's policies were so unpopular that he
was deposed
within a few months. His call for reforms did not entirely
disappear, however. A few Nepali-language primary schools
in the
Kathmandu Valley, the Hill Region, and the Tarai remained
open, and
the practice of admitting a few middle- and low-caste
children to
Durbar High School continued.
Before World War II (1939-45), several new English
middle and
high schools were founded in Patan, Biratnagar, and
elsewhere, and
a girls' high school was opened in Kathmandu. In the
villages,
public respect for education was increasing, largely as a
result of
the influence of returning Gurkha soldiers, many of whom
had
learned to read and write while serving in the British
army. Some
retired soldiers began giving rudimentary education to
children in
their villages. Some members of the high-caste, elite
families sent
their children to Patna University, Banaras Hindu
University, or
other universities in India for higher academic or
technical
training. It was in fact, some of these students, having
realized
how oppressive the policies of Rana rule were, who
initiated antiRana movements, provided revolutionary cadres, and finally
began
the revolution that ultimately led to the overthrow of
Rana rule in
1951.
Before the 1950-51 revolution, Nepal had 310 primary
and middle
schools, eleven high schools, two colleges, one normal
school, and
one special technical school. In the early 1950s, the
average
literacy rate was 5 percent. Literacy among males was 10
percent
and among females less than 1 percent. Only 1 child in 100
attended
school.
Data as of September 1991
|