ABSTRACT
Even though more than one-third of Nepal’s colleges are categorized as community colleges (UGC, 2012), the biggest missing piece in Nepal’s higher education is community engagement. The irony is rooted in the fact that most of the colleges are satellite campuses affiliated with a handful of universities, offering bachelor and master’s degrees on the basis of centralized curricula and externally administered high stake examinations. Now that the country is poised to harness economic potentials by embracing a federal structure, higher education needs to unleash itself from the tether of pseudo-elitist ivory-tower model in favor of community-engaged scholarly activities geared toward the development of skills and entrepreneurship. Most of the scholars we spoke to emphasized skills development through community-based colleges that promote accessible job-oriented skills for adult students through apprenticeship, professional education, and technical and vocational education and training. This chapter presents an overview of current Nepalese higher education. Results are based on quantitative and qualitative data collected over the past two years. Results support an argument for a strong need for a community-engagement model of higher education to allow youth an opportunity to maximize local resources, overcome high unemployment rates, and end socio-cultural discrimination.
Because the higher education system in Nepal is criticized for producing the human resource that doesn’t fit the demand of the job market. It is an irony that there is a dearth of technical man power in the local market on one hand and at the same time thousands of students and youths are leaving the country citing that there is lack of employment opportunities in Nepal. I think this can be minimized with the establishment of technical community colleges that cater to the needs of the local market.
— Study participant