Education at the stage of uncertainty : English medium schooling and Gurung
community in rural Nepal
Presenter:
MAGAART Seminar on SDR
Hari Maya Sharma Email: [email protected]: +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
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