ABSTRACT
In the context of recent political revolutions and the socioeconomic changes in Nepalese society, as well as globalization and technological advancements, the university education system and the culture of teaching/learning in Nepal is changing. Based on extensive interviews with college teachers of English and business communication, and rhetorical analysis of writing discourse in Nepal, I found four primary strands of writing across disciplinary and institutional contexts – writing as a communication skill, writing as a means for the professions, writing as creative expression, and writing as a process. Diversity of views and evidence of change were apparent between discourse about undergraduate and graduate curricula, which was further illustrated by the difference between how the teaching of writing was approached in the annual system and the semester system. As reflected in this study of how academic writing is taught and represented in teachers’ discourses, gradual change is occurring in Nepal’s higher education, and the waves of that change could be moving from private and new public institutions to the old public institutions, and from graduate programs to the undergraduate.
