Why Do Nepali Colleges Suck?
An honest reflection on the state of bachelor's education in Nepal from someone who's been both a student and a teacher.
Hello everyone,
I completed my Bachelor's in Computer Application in 2023 from Oxford College of Engineering and Management. Currently, I am working as a teacher at Ratna Rajya School of Nawalpur, where I teach subjects like Computer Networks and Web Page Development to students pursuing a Diploma in Computer Engineering.
Over the years, both as a student and now as a teacher, I have developed some thoughts about colleges in Nepal, especially at the bachelor's level, and why most of them fall short. Why are we so far behind compared to foreign colleges? In addition, how is it that bachelor's-level education, which is supposed to be the cornerstone of one's career, fails to provide the value it should?
Most of my thoughts come from the college where I studied and my own experiences, but trust me; most colleges in Nepal are similar. I have heard stories from many bachelor's students that confirm this. Here, I am not trying to defame my college or anyone, they are trying their best, but unfortunately, it is not enough, not even close. Also, a lot of the experiences in this blog are about IT, which is my degree; maybe other fields have had better experiences.
The Root of the Problem: Money
Before explicitly telling my story, I want to talk about why our colleges are inherently below par compared to other countries, and it comes down to money or the cost of our degrees. Compared to foreign degrees, which cost anywhere from 20 lakhs to one crore per year, a Nepali bachelor's degree can be completed for just an average of 10 lakhs for a 4-year course. With such low fees, colleges cannot hire professional or experienced professors. If colleges start charging higher fees, people will not study because they won't be able to afford it, or they'll think Nepali degrees aren't worth that much.
With such nominal fees compared to foreign colleges and universities, they cannot hire lecturers who are experienced in their field. For example, if a college wants a teacher for Data Structures, they cannot hire someone who is already working in software engineering or handling data structures in real-world applications because their salary is already very high, and the college's salary for lecturers is on the lower side. However, many professors in countries like the USA are people who have already worked in many companies or are very experienced in their particular field, and colleges can hire those high-salaried professors because they charge hefty fees from students. Such professors obviously provide higher quality lectures, and they have proper insights about that particular field and its applications. I am not sure if colleges in Nepal willingly don't hire those qualified lecturers or if they simply cannot afford it.
The Student Side of the Equation
This is just one side of the coin—the problem is with students as well. Many students in Nepal do not have that drive or hunger for knowledge. Half the students don't know why they're studying what they're studying. Many students cannot study subjects their interests lie in, like music or filmmaking, because they are not available, or even if they are available, they're too expensive with only 1 or 2 colleges offering them, or their parents won't let them. Students studying BBA do not even know how businesses operate, what entrepreneurship is, or many basic things, and they are not interested to know either. The teachers also can't spark that interest in students as well with their traditional teaching methods. Some students in IT complete their bachelor's but can't write a single program. They don't even know the concept of data structures or objects, and they're not interested in learning either. And then people complain about not getting jobs after completing their degrees.
My Personal Experience
Coming to my experience: There was a subject called DSA (Data Structures and Algorithms), and we had this teacher who taught us DSA, and during the whole semester, he never connected DSA with any programming language. Yes, you heard it right—he neither implemented DSA using any programming language nor took us to the lab. Later, I came to know about the importance of DSA in programming, and it made me furious. Our Computer Networks (CN) teacher knew only theory about networks; she never gave us applications of any concepts. She never took us to the lab to show routers and switches, never taught us simulations, and never truly made us understand topics like DNS, OSI layers, or even HTTP and its use in web development.
The Vicious Cycle
This is how teachers are here. In other countries, people go into many fields, gain experience, and then become teachers. In our country, people become teachers when they can't do anything meaningful in life. That said, there are also some good teachers. I had one or two good teachers during my bachelor's, like our Accounts teacher and PHP teacher.
The sad reality is that we're stuck in a vicious cycle: Low fees mean we can't hire quality teachers, which means poor education quality, which means graduates aren't valued in the market, which means people won't pay higher fees. And the cycle continues.
What are your thoughts on the state of education in Nepal? Have you had similar experiences? I'd love to hear your perspective.