Education at the stage of uncertainty : English medium schooling and Gurung

community in rural Nepal

Presenter:

MAGAART Seminar on SDR

Hari Maya Sharma Email: hbhimasharma@hotmail.comMobile: +977 984 606 8645

Affiliated institution

Tribhuvan UniversityFaculty of Education

Department of English

7-8th December, 2015

Context

• Space of English in school education• As a subject – Compulsory–Optional

Contd.

• Privatization in education (since 1990)Profit makingService-oriented

Contd.

• Overwhelming English medium schools throughout the country

• centralized in urban

Contd.

• Motivation of elites from urban:

• to establish private school• to send their children in

those schools

Contd.

• Motivation of elites from village (some decades ago)

• Motivation of common people ( present)

Question:

• How is English in Education Policy (EMI) practiced in local context? How does the school practice of the policy influence those indigenous students and their family members to practice and experience their existing culture and to adapt new cultural practices?

Study field

Informants

• Gurung children because Gurung ethnic group is – Gurkha soldiers– Contact English– Financially more elevated– More aware– Have their own language

Methods (Qualitative: ethnographic)

• Observation• Conversation• Interview• Document analysis

School practices ( from the observation of three schools ‘A’ ‘B’ ‘C’ )

• Centralized in urban • Name as ‘……English Boarding school’ but not

boarders system• Claim to be English medium school but not

taught in English (most of the interaction in Nepali)

• Claim to give quality education but not good physical and academic environment

Theoretical Framework

Socio-cultural perspectives (Levinson, Sutton & Winstead, 2009: p. 770)

• In particular, we understand policy as a complex, ongoing social practice of normative cultural production constituted by diverse actors across diverse contexts. On the one hand, the most immediate product of the policy process should be understood as a normative cultural discourse with positive and negative sanctions, that is, a set of statements about how things should or must be done, with corresponding inducements or punishments.

Theoretical framework contd.

‘Policy as normative discourse may be what we call officially authorized, that is, backed by enforcement mechanisms of government or corporate charter. On the other hand, policy may also develop in more spontaneous and informal fashion, outside the agencies or offices that are constitutionally charged with making policy’ (Levinson et al, 2009; p. 770)

Influence in Gurung community

• From unified cluster to fractured field– Semi-migration– Family structure and relation– Cultural and practice– Diminishing traditional occupation– Invites more developmental problems– Gurung language is threatened

From unified cluster to fractured field

• Detached from their original community– Family conflict– Cultural dislocation (moving themselves from

traditionally practiced culture and flowing towards new practices

– Cultural fluidity (adapt new cultural practices)

English medium schooling: a means of conflict escalation

• A means of conflict in school : – Identity conflict ( those who can teach in English

show their supremacy in school others vice versa)– Power conflict ( parallel status tussle….) – Frustration among teacher

Conclusion

• English medium schooling has created complexities, fluidity and uncertainty in Gurung community in their own identity, cultural practices and children’s schooling either in their village or in migrated community. I do not claim that English medium schooling is the sole reason for such complexities but it has become an agent to bring such fractions, fluidity and break down previous structure

Thank you