I had the privilege to teach chemistry at a private college in Nepal for two years and here in the USA, I have been teaching for almost three years to undergraduate students. If you ask me which, did you like, I will say- each of these education systems both American as well Nepalese have their own strengths and weaknesses. An education system is regarded best which is responsible for redefining a human being into some talented persona who succeeds in accomplishing his/her dreams. There are many differences between the United States education system and the Nepalese education system. Of these differences, three aspects are the most important ones. First, in Nepal, the poor’s have fewer education opportunities than the rich. This is in contrast to the United States, where even the poor can get a good education from a good school. Second, the United States has the best technology to help students in their courses. And third, there exists a huge difference related to job placement and career opportunities for students.
Before talking about the education system in both countries, let me tell my experiences of teaching chemistry in Nepal and the United States of America. I started to teach chemistry for 10 + 2 students (college students) in Nepal after completing my master’ Degree in Chemistry. The classes used to quite a descent – around 35 to 40 students although the public college have a higher number of students. The students demand notes in the class. So, most of the time is elapsed in writing the note in the class. First, I used to describe the topic with examples on the whiteboard for 15 minutes (say) and then asked students to begin writing. Students keep on writing as I go on speaking about the topic. The college used to give the responsibility of teaching a few chapters instead of the whole course. This is something I did not like. The department chair used to prepare the syllabus and divide the teaching load of different chapters among the faculties. The exams were conducted for all subjects at a specific time. The teaching faculty used to be asked to submit the list of questions from the topic that they taught, and the department chair used to finalize which questions are to be included in the question paper. In the USA, faculties are given a full course to teach. The faculties prepare their own syllabus and decide the exam dates at their own discretion. After my Ph.D., and short postdoc training, I started teaching at a university. I use PowerPoints as well as some other technological tools like document camera, clickers, etc. The faculties and students are provided access to the online course management system like Blackboard, Canvas, etc. These tools enhance the teaching power and the student's learning experience, saving more time and effort, and allowing greater focus on other priorities. Further, students always know where they stand in their course because the Gradebook in Canvas or Blackboard is always available. The technological tools that I mentioned come with certain costs and certainly the students in Nepal can not afford to. This affects their learning ability. Nevertheless, in my experience, I have found many students in Nepal being sincere and polite with their teachers. In the USA, the students are given more privileges so, they do not afraid to speak with their teachers. I always like to treat the students as friends. The American students are little forward in his matter.
The position of the teacher in terms of social status
differs massively in both countries. The teacher is given a lot of respect for
the profession by the people in Nepal although it is declining in recent
years. This is mainly due to the rich cultural heritage that has revered the
teacher as ‘Guru’. It is not similar in term of the US society. The American
students especially in higher education call their teacher or principal
investigator (PI) by their first name. In Nepal, we never imagine calling a
teacher with his or her first name!
In the United States, the rich and poor both have equal
opportunities to be educated. They receive many benefits, for example, computers,
libraries, transportation, etc. On another hand in Nepal, only rich students get
higher education, poor student parents can’t afford their children. Rich parents’
children received many benefits and higher education than the poor do. In the
United States, the poor student gets more federal aid from the government, and honor
students get more scholarship from their schools. In Nepal, there is no such
thing as called scholarship for poor students, although circumstances are
being changed because of governmental initiations. In Nepal, it cost lots of
tuition fees. Only rich people have more money to enroll their children in school.
In the United States, there are billions of resources for
students to learn through computers. Students have easy methods to submit their
work through computers, teachers, and students both save lots of time. On the other hand in Nepal, we only have books to learn, we don’t have social media and
other resources in use but some changes have been seen after the Covid-19 pandemic. We
do all of our work through notebook paper. Students have to take exams through
notebooks and students never get knowledge from outside of the world. In the
pandemic, where students were abstained from going to school/college, the US
schools and universities quickly moved to remote teaching. However, in
Nepal, the schools were completely closed and there was no remote teaching as
well. This is because students don't have computers at all.
In the United State, after students finished their
education, they have lots of opportunities for jobs. They get offers from
different companies. In Nepal, the job is not secured after passing certain
courses. This is because the learning process does not overlap with the job
market.
Another important aspect is the evaluation of
teachers and courses. In Nepal, especially in higher education, the professors are
not evaluated at all. Once they are recruited, their job gets solidified. I
have experienced some teachers who used their 15 years old notebook (quite
yellowish in look with the age) and never thought of improving their style of
teaching. Private college teachers are evaluated while they are being
appointed. After that, they never get evaluated by the students. Ensuring
teacher quality with a robust, fair, research-based, and well-implemented
evaluation system can strengthen the workforce and improve the quality of
education. However, in the USA, teachers are evaluated by their students every
semester. This compels the teachers to improve themselves.
Let’s try to compare the
education system in Nepal and the USA. The education system in Nepal comprises
of pre-primary (kindergarten), primary (1st to 5th grades), lower-secondary (6th to 8th grades), secondary (9th to 10th grades), and higher secondary education (11th
and12th grades). Soon after 12th grade one can directly join any professional
course of choice which means the lesser period of study to become a professional
and an earlier job.
The school education pattern
in the USA is divided into three levels, viz the elementary school (kindergarten
through fifth grade), the middle school (6th to 8th grade), and high school (9th to 12th grade). Once the kid finishes high school,
then he or she can enroll for bachelor courses of choice in College and then
later join professional courses in Universities which means a longer time of
study period to become a professional. The number of students per class is
much higher in Nepalese schools. Uniforms are given high priority and adhered
to strictly as compared with the US where most schools do not have uniforms and
dress codes are very flexible.
In Nepal, the test basically
examines the memorizing power of a student and focuses less on critical thinking
power. Even in lower classes, there are formal exams. The exam period is a very
stressful period for students as well as parents. The exam dates will be
declared well ahead of time and all other activities in the school will be
planned around it. During exam season, parents usually cancel all other
activities and focus only on creating a study environment for children.
In most cases, the kids who can memorize the study material can score higher
marks in Nepal. The ability to think and be creative is mostly not given the
recognition it deserves.
Creative students score higher in the USA. In lower grades, exams are usually a part of normal teaching and so kids do not usually sit and read for days before they take a test. This is different in higher classes where students prepare for tests earlier, though not so stressful.
The Nepalese education system places a lot of emphasis on rote learning material. Students focus on absorbing as much knowledge as they can. Consequently, students do well in quantitative subjects. However, knowledge is treated as facts and immutable truths rather than ideas to be assessed critically, so young Nepali students don’t do as well in “soft” subjects and are generally poor at critical or independent thinking. Schools for the most part ignore personality development and social skills.
The American system swings
in the opposite direction with a greater emphasis on soft skills and creating a
more rounded competitive individual with broader cross-subject knowledge but
then weaker in specific subject areas than Nepali counterparts of the same
grade. In Nepal, how well we perform in the midterm or final exam decides our
grades. Assignments, quizzes, daily classwork/homework, etc. do not hold comparatively much weight in
relation to final grades unlike in the USA, though the situation is changing a lot
now.
Conclusion
Overall education in Nepal is more about memorizing
with study materials, more about academic performance, giving utmost respect to
teachers, and scoring in final exams. Academic excellence achieves more
preference than sports or another overall achievement though, with recent
modifications which claim to be global concepts, situations are definitely
changing. The overall education system in the USA is about learning, preparing children
to explore and understand concepts, about learning the concept not only through
books but by actually learning through practical’s, not about stressing kids on
written exams, not solely about academic competitiveness, about learning in
small numbers and more about the day-to-day practical evaluation of the child.
There are some similarities between Nepalese education
and US education. Both have
well-qualified teachers, impart quality education based on modern science and
technology, have concepts of private and public schools, properly tailored
curriculum as per regular standards, and aim in upbringing qualified
professionals for the society.
I personally feel that there are some areas for improvement. In Nepal, there is rigidity where the student has to study all the
subjects in the schooling period. There is no chance to skip these subjects.
Extracurricular activities and physical education are not given much
priority in Nepal. In higher education, students should be introduced to the
research. The government should allocate sufficient funds to run the labs by the
faculty members. In spite of all this, the works done by Mahabir Pun
(established National Innovation Center) and some other scientists who have
returned to Nepal from abroad have lite a light of hope in recent years!
This article got published in Nepal's number 1 online newspaper (19th Feb. 2022):
https://english.onlinekhabar.com/education-system-nepal-us-teacher.html
Also in the Nepalese Association of Florida (NAF) quarterly newspaper Indreni:
https://floridanepalese.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/NAF-Newsletter-Design-2022.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1evLzBjM3USqT4wopNS0Pkj-Bes9CCqFSeRVgEoUljv123hy5pXZPLbyQ
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