An almost tiring scenario can be seen in the eyes and spirit of the academia talking about two decades’ initiatives of Open University (OU) in Nepal. Several task forces, both private and public, worked hard in this regard, and came up with recommendations and feasibility options. The first initiative was made by CHIRAG with some Canadian experts in 1997 to study the feasibility of Open University in Nepal. It also explored the places where OU could be established along with a detailed plan of using the then available technology in open education. Two big reports were submitted to the government but nothing happened. Later, a private group led by Ratna Kamal Vaidya was formed at its own initiation that discussed details of OU with the stakeholders and came up with a draft bill of OU. The bill was a landmark in the history of OU initiative in Nepal, but the bureaucrats in the MoE were apathetic, and barring it, they forwarded the bills of other universities to the parliament.
In 1999, an Open University committee was formed under the then Secretary of MoE Jaya Ram Giri to work out and submit recommendations to establish an OU in Nepal. OU experts, stakeholders, government officials including the representatives of various sectors worked it out in detail and submitted the recommendations to the government in three major areas: preparation, implementation and development. The report was the first government initiative in OU establishment in Nepal. In 2001, OU was announced in the government’s annual program in the parliament, with a budgetary allocation of around Rs. 10 million. Unfortunately, the money was diverted to other purposes by the UGC instead of utilising it for the the OU.
The Ninth Plan and Tenth Plan also stressed on OU in Nepal to provide equitable access to higher education to the marginalized groups as part of its poverty alleviation program. However, the MoE never wanted it to be operational. That is the reason why it did not take even a single initiative to forward the bill to the parliament. Several universities were approved by the parliament during this period, but OU always relegated.
The academia pushed the agenda to the MoE through seminars, workshops, articles in newspaper. In 2006, the government allocated Rs. 2.5 million to start the OU action again. With the amount, UGC invited VCs of OU from India and Pakistan to discuss the pros and cons of OU so as to learn lessons for Nepal. Professor Bidyanath Koirala and the author of this article, who were the initiators of OU in Nepal from the very beginning, presented their paper jointly in the UGC initiative. The discussion was participated in by almost all the representatives of the OU stakeholders in Nepal. The most unfortunate thing was that MoE did not attend the seminar with bureaucrats in capacity. This again indicated that the MoE was not interested in OU in Nepal.
Again, last year, the duo initiators organized meetings with young parliamentarians Gagan Thapa, Rabindra Adhikari and Keshav Nepal under the chairpersonship of the then NPC member Professor Tirth Khaniya. The meetings decided to push the OU bill in the parliament as a private bill, because the OU bill has not been presented to the parliament as a separate bill, bust rather as a part of the Higher Education Bill pending in the parliament.
A couple of years back, the Nepali Diaspora came along with a package of OU initiatives in Nepal, with show assistance from Athabasca University of Canada. Surprisingly, the Minister and Secretary of Education, along with bureaucrats and politicians in capacity, attended the seminar organized by the Diaspora at Annapurna Hotel, the same denied to participate in UGC seminar on OU earlier. It is interesting to note here the attitude of the politicians and bureaucrats towards the Diaspora initiatives versus Nepali academia for the same effort.
Now, the NRN wanted to study the feasibility of OU in Nepal by discussions with the stakeholders at Soaltee Hotel. It would not be surprising that most of the MoE, NPC and other powerful bureaucrats and politicians will join the discussion. At a time when Nepali universities have already started dual mode in education from the past decade, the importance of this kind of feasibility discussion would be interesting. Tribhuvan University started dual mode in 2004, Purvanchal started Distance Higher Education at the same time, and Kathamandu University started its dual mode from 2011.
Several open and distance activities in education has been in practice since 1957 in Nepal. Distance mode teacher training started in 1980, and later converted to Distance Education Center. However, the MoE merged this center into a section of NCED that crippled the development of Open and Distance education in Nepal. Had the MoE initiated to utilizing this center as a hub of open education in Nepal, Open University would have been established in Nepal a decade ago. Whatever the case, let us start a tradition of trusting Nepali academia more than anything else, if the government is keen to establish OU in Nepal.
Dr. Wagley is an educationist
(Source: The Himalayantimes)
