(De)valuing higher education: educated youth, generational differences and a changing educational landscape in Kathmandu, Nepal

Sheela, aged 23 in 2012, was a master’s student of physics at a public university campus in Kathmandu. She had grown up in a small town close to the Indian border in far west Nepal. After she had scored top marks in the school leaving examinations, her parents wanted her to continue her education in the distant capital city. Her parents had never been to Kathmandu and had only completed lower levels of schooling.