Pedagogical Practices Under State Control: A Study of Basic Education in Nepal During the Panchayat Polity

Abstract

The Panchayat era in Nepal, emerging after the short-lived multi-party democracy established in 1951, brought a party-less political system that significantly influenced the nation's educational, social, and economic aspects. Although the 1956 Nepal National Education Planning Commission proposed a developmental roadmap for education, it remained unimplemented. With the establishment of the Panchayat polity in 1960, the All-Round National Education Committee was formed to reassess the education system, leading to the 1971 National Education System Plan based on a comprehensive review of educational reports from 1951 to 1971. This Plan underwent both mid- and long-term evaluations, ultimately paving the way for the 1981 Curriculum Implementation Project. These reforms marked a systematic effort to restructure and institutionalize education in line with the Panchayat regime’s political ideology. This study critically examines primary education during the Panchayat era, focusing on curriculum, educational objectives, pedagogical and assessment practices, textbooks, teaching-learning materials, physical infrastructure, and the financial system. Employing a qualitative methodology, it integrates an inductive-deductive iterative approach to thematic content analysis. Panchayat-era policy documents and educational literature form the theoretical foundation, with insights derived through both exploration and reasoning. Findings are systematically organized into critically analyzed themes and sub-themes to ensure analytical depth. The findings of this study reveal that notable efforts were undertaken to reform the education sector during the Panchayat era under monarchical rule. An education commission was established, and notably, Nepal’s only fully implemented national education plan to date was executed during this period. The school curriculum was developed alongside the formulation of national, level-specific, and subject-specific educational objectives. Furthermore, ambitious initiatives were introduced to institutionalize scientific teaching-learning practices and modernize student assessment systems. Provisions were also made for determining the salaries and allowances of schoolteachers. However, despite these reform initiatives, the anticipated educational transformation was not realized. The prevailing education system, which prioritized the glorification of the monarchy, the cultivation of loyalty to the king, and the promotion of the belief in the king as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, exhibited significant limitations. As a result, this education system underwent subsequent revisions to address its inherent deficiencies.