Education and conflict in Nepal: possibilities for reconstruction

This paper analyses the nexus of the ‘People's War’ and education in Nepal and argues that education was one of the main causes of the violent conflict. Despite ‘modernisation’ efforts and increased participation, schools in Nepal continued to embody socially and culturally prejudiced values and institutionally legitimised the inequitable practices through the education system. Drawing on qualitative interviews with educational stakeholders from six diverse districts across the country, this paper shows how manifold deficiencies in the education system contributed to generate and fuel the ‘ideology-led’ Maoist rebellion and subsequently how schools thus became a key battlefield of the violent conflict.