Proceedings of The International Conference on New Approaches in Education
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/icnaeducation.2019.07.397
Culturally Responsive in Education: Making Education Unresponsive Social Needs
Babu Ram Sapkota
ABSTRACT:
Culturally Responsive in Education: Making Education Unresponsive Social Needs Nepal’s School Sector Reform Program (SSRP) that guided the education development initiatives in the country during the period 2009-15 envisioned that by 2015 “a student has basic life skills to co-exist in the competitive contemporary, global society” (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2008, p. 17). Going further, the Program also noted that its goals are built on “EFA Framework of Action”. The global orientation of the reform program was thus very clear. Envisioning to prepare the children for global society and following an EFA framework emphasize the global orientation of Nepali education. The SSRP was not the only plan with global orientation; the first Nepali education development plan prepared in 1955 also had the same orientation. The plan had written “we have become a part of the world, whether we like it or not. We can no longer remain isolated; the world has come to us. How can we meet this world without education?” (Pandey, K.C., & Wood, 1956, p. 83). The global orientation was thus not a new phenomenon in Nepali education and the dream towards becoming international has been there in Nepali education consistently. Continuing with the same dream, SSRP presented the strategy of competitive and contemporary global education for Nepal and Nepalese.
This strong urge towards becoming international needs to be understood both in the national and international contexts. The same 1955 plan had emphasized that education, in the sense of modern school education, was the only available option for achieving a modernized and developed Nepal. Modernization and development therefore have been the prime national agenda in the post 1950 Nepal and the state has adopted the schooled education as one of the key strategies for achieving these goals. Periodic development plans implemented in Nepal have also consistently emphasized the role of education in development. There was even the slogan of ‘education for development’ (Ministry of Education, 1971). All such enthusiasm on education and development was to convince the people that by going through the modern schooled education they would enjoy the development of international standard. During the 1980s, the country even adopted the slogan of ‘Asian Standard” (Bista, 1999). The claim was that with the state development policy, the country will arrive at the Asian standard of development – a dream given to the poverty-stricken people by the state elites. The implicit objective behind all these efforts towards internationalization of education and development in the country was to legitimize the state authority (Shrestha, 1997, p. 65). It has been argued that the states derive their logic and rationale for authority, power, and privilege by delivering growth and development to its people (Shanin, 1997). The growth of schooling in any country also illustrates the power dynamics among different interest groups in the society. The group that holds the power always tries to design schooling as per their own interest and as their efforts towards easing their ruling process.
Keywords: Cross‐cultural studies, Gender, Equal opportunities, Social values, cultural impact.