scholarly journals Irrelevance of Basic School Education in Nepal: An Anti-Colonial Critique on Problems and Prospects

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shree Krishna Wagle ◽  
Bal Chandra Luitel ◽  
Erling Krogh
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Public School ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
School Education ◽  
Practical Relevance ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Contextualized Teaching And Learning

Despite its contextual, theoretical, and practical relevance, contextualized teaching and learning has not been the priority of school education of Nepal. The policy provision of local curriculum and the use of locally available resources for teaching and learning have continuously lost its position in educational circle. To this background, taking anti-colonial critical stance, this paper analyses problems and prospects of contextualized teaching and learning in school education of Nepal. Taking evidences from the first author's lived experiences, and experiences from a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project in a public school of Nepal, the paper exposes manifold challenges and dilemmas initiated by Western-modern educational ideologies, and promptly illustrates how those uncritically imposed/accepted schooling agendas were responsible to demolish rural (and indigenous) identities of Nepal. The paper eventually proposes policy makers and curriculum practitioners of Nepal to pursue agency in school education, making it more place-relevant; enabling school graduates to learn to ‘live’ (rather than ‘leave’) their place.

scholarly journals Parental engagement in social entrepreneurship by participatory action research at school of Nepal

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
G Maharjan ◽  
B Devkota ◽  
S Gjotterud ◽  
S L Bastien
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Social Entrepreneurship ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Study Finding ◽  
Parental Engagement ◽  
School Education ◽  
Educational Outcome ◽  
Participatory Action

Abstract School education has immense role for the better future of a country. However, schools such as in a developing, country like Nepal face many barriers in demand creation as well as quality in classroom delivery. Students enter the school with mental stress and family problems. This restricts the educational outcome of schooling. Social entrepreneurship (SE) is an alien idea still in most schools in Nepal. By this venture, School social entrepreneurship can help the students and society to detect the skill of life which changes their life standard in future. It helps students to be regular in school, improve their health and ultimately bring change in overall educational achievement. In contrary to this, because of students poor economic condition they are neither able to have proper breakfast nor lunch which leads to sleepiness and inability to concentrate in the class room. Hence their learning outcome is poor. Following a Participatory Action Research (PAR) paradigm, the first author spent more than a year with rigorous field engagement in Janajivan Secondary school at Chitwan district of Nepal in order to understand the context and real need of SE. The school has own building and enough land where opportunity to develop entrepreneurship activities with the concept of 'supporting livelihood of parents through SE' approach. To dig out the reasons, We used informal talk, focused group discussion, observation and interview with teachers, students, community members, school management committee and parents. The study finding indicates that lack of time, teacher's fear of commercialism, impeding educational structures and sustainability were some of the challenges integrating SE in school. Experiential earning and learning based activities can be practiced in school outside the classroom. Having SE at school with parental involvement can be innovative pedagogical approach in school education of Nepal. Key messages Entrepreneurship linking with health education. Promote livelihood with entrepreneurship by participatory action research.

A cross-university initiative to enhance SOTL through a students as partners approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 218
Author(s):  
Colin Bryson
Keyword(s):  
International Students ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Western Washington ◽  
Traditional Structures ◽  
Washington University

This case study evaluates a new initiative to establish a cross-disciplinary forum focusing on enhancing learning, teaching and the student experience. All staff and students are welcome to participate and participants set the agenda themselves. The intention is to have open and informal dialogue and to work in partnership towards setting up collective participatory action-research projects. This is modelled on the Teaching and Learning Academy at Western Washington University (Werder and Otis, 2010). An important aim was to create a space to give voice for those - the so-called ‘hard to reach’- who do not get such opportunities in traditional structures. There have been many challenges to creating a sustainable and successful working model, not least such barriers as communications, creating time and opportunity and working against current dominant cultures. Nonetheless, staff and students, including many international students, have participated and found legitimacy to discuss their own priorities. 

The challenges of participation in doing community-based participatory action research: Lessons from the Kwithu Project

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalis G Wamba
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Random Group ◽  
Running Water

The Kwithu project started when a volunteer who joined Kwithu, a community-based organization in Mzuzu, Malawi (Africa), to teach English gave a diagnostic test to a random group of forty 7th and 8th graders (20 boys and 20 girls) and discovered that most of them could hardly read or write in English. The test results prompted Maureen, the Kwithu director and co-founder, the teacher and myself to meet with the headteachers of the three schools mostly attended by Kwithu children. The headteachers appreciated our concerns about the English proficiency of the children, but they advised us to focus on more urgent matters if we truly wanted to help, e.g., lack of teaching and learning materials, lack of running water in schools, hunger, teacher qualifications, etc. This advice shifted our initial inquiry goal—from English language teaching—to a community-based participatory action research project designed to address the school conditions in Luwinga. In this paper, I describe the community-based participatory action research inquiry and I reflect on the process of participation.

scholarly journals Shifting Gears: Lessons Learnt From Critical, Collaborative, Self-Reflection on Community-Based Research

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lulza Olim de Sousa ◽  
Emerentia Antoinette Hay ◽  
Schalk Petrus Raath ◽  
Aubrey Albertino Fransman ◽  
Barend Wilhelm Richter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Research ◽  
Self Reflection

This article reflects the learning of five researchers in higher education in South Africa who took part in a participatory action research project to educate teachers how to integrate climate change issues into their teaching and learning. It was the first time any of the researchers had used participatory action research. We are all from natural science backgrounds and now involved in education for sustainable development. We had been trained in more traditional, objective, and researcher-driven methodologies grounded in a positivist paradigm. The purpose of this article is to share our learning about the changes we had to make in our thinking and practices to align with a participatory paradigm. We used reflective diaries to record our journey through the action research cycles. A thematic analysis of our diaries was supplemented by recorded discussions between the researchers. The analysis revealed that, while it was challenging to begin thinking in a different paradigm, we came to appreciate the value of the action research process that enabled teachers to integrate climate change issues into their teaching in a participatory way. We also concluded that we require more development to be able to conduct participatory research in a manner true to its values and principles. The conclusions we came to through our collaborative reflections may be of value to other researchers from similar scientific backgrounds who wish to learn what shifts in paradigm, methods, and processes are needed to be able to conduct community-based research in a participatory way.

The Language Warriors: Transcending ideologies on bilingualism in education

2020 ◽  
pp. 147675032093115
Author(s):  
Lara Alonso ◽  
Khanh Le
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Eighth Grade Students ◽  
Middle School Youth ◽  
School Youth

This article explores how middle school youth view bilingualism and act on these views to transform their school and their communities. Following a post-structuralist perspective on language and society, a lens from raciolinguistic ideologies, and a creative justice approach, we developed a Participatory Action Research project in which seventh and eighth grade students became co-researchers as we explored how to make bilingualism more welcome in their school. In this paper, we reveal how bilingualism became a way to unite students and to fight deficit views of language minoritized communities. We show the students’ potential to engage in critical thinking about bilingualism and to become agents in their schools and communities. Our findings informed the school on how to acknowledge and leverage the students’ language practices and lived experiences based on a framework of armed and bilingual love.

Action Research in Deaf Education

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Beal-Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Based Instruction

This chapter presents an overview of action research, specifically, participatory action research (PAR), and its components. These components include, among others, recruitment and establishment of co-researchers, specifically deaf co-researchers and their lived experiences; confidentiality responsibilities in the PAR process; identification of relevant issues within target communities; and power-sharing among team members. The author reviews the action research literature related to deaf participants and co-researchers and focuses on the subcategory of action research within deaf education. Finally, the author presents empirical data through case studies that demonstrate how preservice and in-service teachers utilize action research interventions to guide their data-based instruction.

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