The increasing access to education in
Nepal is an important achievement in Nepal’s development arena. The access of
quality education is mostly confined within the elite and rich people whereas
poor families might not be able to send their children to the high to mediocre
school or they don’t get good quality education even if the families are able
to send them to the schools. This disparity among the student youth results in
unequal uptake of knowledge from the education institutions. This eventually is
creating unequal society having the differential access to education,
employment and power. This proves the notion that wealth and education are
directly proportional and wealth and risks inversely proportional (Furlong
et al, 2007).
With the evolving late modernity, awareness
among middle class people has also increased and they are being capable to
provide quality education to their children utilizing money from generated from
remittance and income from some skilled works. While in principle, the richer
get the good quality education, there are signs that middle class also get the
quality education from relatively comparable education institutions. However as
described in political economy of ambivalence (Furlong et al,
2007), it is true that
both the richer and poorer students have risks despite of their class
categorization. For instance, the youths from elite family tend to ‘enjoy’ the
moment it his/her way with modernity and keep themselves into a higher health
risks in some circumstances. They do have better access to drugs and drinking
and likely to show the behavior like ‘drink and drive’ to ‘enjoy’ their life.
Whereas, youths from medium class also try to learn from the elite youths and
try to follow the paths sometimes which becomes counter-productive and more harmful
for them and their families because of their relatively lower capacity to
fulfill every demand of the youths. In this backdrop, youths of both classes
are vulnerable to the symptoms of late modernity.
It is likely that poor and medium
class families will be suffered by economic pressures created by late
modernity. Youths are ambitious and they try to imitate what the others of
similar age from high income families do. For instance, they need to have a
good-looking smartphone with new features, must have new-fashioned cloths
changed frequently with the time, should have access to sophisticated
restaurants and so on. In the name of following modernity and to catch up their
elite friends, rural/poor youths tend to spend much which eventually creates pressures
to their guardians. Additionally, education institutions create an environment
that they must invest much on subsidiary unrelated things rather than purely in
education.
On the other hand, poor youths tend to
be psychologically affected when their demands are not fulfilled because of
incapability of their family. The inferiority complex may arise which
eventually may bring mental illness among the youths. They tend to produce
social media posts in which they will show themselves as if they are economically
flourishing, which may not be true. In such scenario, disparity between the
social media posts and their actual status will eventually result in
dissatisfaction among the youths. This differences between the different
economic classes will eventually increase the difference or gap further and
marginalize certain section of the society due to relatively lesser access to
modern appliances.
Increasing thought of individualism is
a key phenomenon of current sociological change in Nepal. The general trend
seen in the schools and colleges youths is the changing scenario of student
life from collectivism to individualism. Though the trend is highly entrenched
in private schools and colleges, public institutions are not the exception.
However, students of publicly funded and operated institutions have some level
of collectivism compared to the private ones. Especially youths tend to depart
from their families to better enjoy their moments in own way. The current
leapfrogging in social media communication in Nepal and at global scale has
tremendously changed the behavioral pattern of the youths. Rather being
involved in family social talk and gathering, many youths tend to prefer social
media chitchat and conversation with the new friends whom they have not met
never in-person. The social media
progress has come up as a revolutionary change in the society which has
influenced the societies at a big scale. This has created an atmosphere to interact
with different people of different classes.
The increase in individuality is also
evident in Nepalese education institutions. The students and their guardians
tend to approach the school or college administration in a more individual
manner. The success and failure of the student will be praised or blamed based
on his/her individual performances rather than considering other factors
including socio-economic status of the family or the relative inefficiency of
the education institutions. In this light, there will be lesser chances of
student movements or campaigns to improve the quality of education even if the
results are due to inefficiency of the institutions. However, as the student
life tends to be longer with no any income generating activity (semi-dependence
state) until getting higher degree, it is anticipated that the youths may
involve in political campaigns and uprising even if they don’t have enough
ideas about the politics. Whelpton (2005) identified that
expansion of education has led to an increase in dissidents’ number because
education has failed to lead to employment. This clarifies that problems lie on
political system and education quality as well. It is claimed that failure to
deliver the aspirations of opportunity through education is worsened by the
stagnant passivism resulted from the rote memory learning style of education in
Nepal (Koirala-Azaad, 2008; Snellinger, 2013). This has huge
implications in the late modernity context where is growing demand for advanced
educational credentials and specializations.
In the late modernity age, the individualistic attitude of youths does not mean that they are free at all. Rather, they are bounded by a more complex environment or circumstances. It seems virtually that social classes are eliminated in late modernity which is false in real sense as the class differences have reached a new height.
References:
Furlong, Andy and Fred
Cartmel. 2007. Young People and Social Change: New Perspectives (Second
Edition). New York: Open University Press.
Koirala-Azad, S. 2008.
‘Unravelling our realities: Nepali students as researchers and activists’. Asia
Pacific Journal of Education 28(3): 251–263.
Snellinger,
A. (2013). Shaping a Livable Present and Future: A review of youth studies in
Nepal. European Bulletin of Himalayan Research 42: 75-103.
Whelpton, J.
2005. A History of Nepal. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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