From Tradition to Transformation: A Literature Review of Educational Change and the Marginalization of Community-based Learning in Nepal

The literature review critically reflects on the impact of the formalization of schooling on community-based learning and the reconfiguration of cultural identity, language, indigenous knowledge, and community involvement in schooling in Nepal. Prior to the formal school system, learning in Nepal was mostly associated with the family, the local community, religious life and rituals, occupation, farming, festivals, traditional narration, apprenticeship, and social interaction. This learning enabled knowledge, skills, values, languages, cultural practices, and relationships to be passed on from one generation to the next, to local environments. As a result of the political changes since the 1950s, formal education grew in size and was increasingly associated with literacy, national development, citizenship, recognized qualifications, employment, and social mobility. This process opened up significant educational and economic opportunities, but also reinforced the dominance of standardized curricula, textbooks, exams, the dominant language, trained teachers, and state-approved knowledge. As a result, oral, practical, place- and community-based knowledge has been sidelined as informal, supplementary, and/or culturally relevant but not academically valid.

The study is conducted as a systematic literature review (SLR) using secondary academic sources. Five themes were identified in the literature, and they are interconnected. First, formal education has played a key role in the evolution of literacy, mobility, and national development, and has favored written, standardized, examinable, and certifiable knowledge. Second, intergenerational learning, cultivation, the organization of festivals and rituals, ecological knowledge, craft, oral history, problem solving, etc., are also part of the indigenous knowledge system but are not widely acknowledged in formal curricula or assessment systems. Third, the widespread use of Nepali and English has created a language hierarchy that can make it difficult to learn mother tongues and can cause issues in learners' cultural identity, confidence, memory, and sense of belonging. Fourth, community involvement has evolved from teaching and knowledge sharing to administration and governance, and to fundraising and support, with communities perceived as being involved in education. Lastly, the creation of a local curriculum, culturally responsive pedagogy, multilingual teaching, indigenous values of leadership, and improved school–community partnerships provide practical opportunities for integration. Meanwhile, implementation is constrained by limited resources, insufficient teacher training, low institutional capacity, participant attitudes, and inconsistent policy implementation.

This study reveals opportunities and marginalization in the process of education change in Nepal. Formal education should therefore be sustained and expanded, and made culturally, linguistically and locally responsive. Community knowledge, mother tongues, elders, families and local knowledge holders can be valid sources of knowledge, improving equity, relevance, participation, cultural continuity, and learner's sense of belonging.