The government published the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) results on Monday. This will affect the lives of over a million young Nepalis who sat the crucial national tests, dubbed the ‘iron gate’.

Every examinee, including those who didn’t do well, ought to be congratulated. There’s no reason to panic or stress too much. As Pulitzer Prize winner Ariana Huffington stated, “Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of it.” Remember, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a university dropout!

Importantly, I argue from personal experience that Nepal’s school education system is very boring, burdensome and unproductive. The curriculum and teaching methods are far from scientific. It’s labour-intensive for both teachers and students, and it doesn’t nurture critical thinking. From early on, students must be taught not only to receive knowledge but also to create new knowledge.

Tailored subjects

We see young kids walking to school, carrying heavy satchels. This is visible proof of how much stress their brains have been put under. Every day, they must attend classes in a range of subjects. No doubt, basic mathematical and language skills are essential for everyone. But high school syllabus demands high-level skills in several subjects, including those that may not be of any interest to the students.

I attended an elite school in Pokhara and passed my SLC in 1996. I had to work very hard to master all the subjects—only to learn that many subjects were of no use in my career, in my life! For example, why did I have to master all those complex mathematical theorems and formulae and difficult chemical equations when my interest lay, from early on, in the arts, in social justice and critical sociology? In fact, there were no good courses on these subjects right up to year twelve.

I did indeed pursue higher degrees in sociology and anthropology and realised, in hindsight, that all those upper-level science and maths lessons required to get through the ‘iron gate’ were a complete waste of my time and energy. I’m sure there are plenty of people who feel the same way. Why learn something that has no practical purpose in one’s life? Why is the SEE thus turned into a form of mental torture?

This intensive tutoring across multiple disciplines, marked by loads of daily homework and hectic preparations for the critical SEE, has led many students to get fed up with learning and books.

This engendering of a negative attitude towards learning in young minds has impeded the advancement of science and technology, innovation and discovery, as well as the development of new philosophies and social theories in our country. That’s part of the reason why our universities and colleges have failed to compete with those in China and India.

So, stop killing the potential of young children by putting them through the hell of the SEE, requiring competence in several disciplines. No mind can grasp everything. Focus on specific subjects and give students loads of optional ones to choose from, according to their interests.

A paradigm shift in our school education is called for. Let’s make education fun; let’s make learning more enjoyable—not so burdensome and boring.

Learning can be fun

I learnt the secret of brilliant academic achievement after I went to Oxford University for my master’s degree in 2008. Not all great achievers in high school in the UK, America and other European countries were endowed with super brains.

They were deeply interested in their particular subjects from early childhood. And they were allowed to dedicate their time and effort towards the same at school and at home. Young minds perform marvels once they are free to indulge in the areas of their interest. That’s the way to make teaching and learning much more enjoyable and fulfilling.

It doesn’t require much psychoanalysis to understand this simple reality. It’s part of human nature. We simply enjoy doing things we are interested in, not in those forced upon us. For instance, a student keen on literature would naturally find botany or biology lessons extremely boring. Basic knowledge is fine, but going deeper is off-putting.

Likewise, someone excited about physics would really struggle to focus on, say, a class on agriculture, evolutionary biology or cosmology. So, we need to rethink our traditional pedagogy and redesign it so that students find their lessons fun and enriching. With government support, education planners and experts must work together towards this goal.

Fewer compulsory courses, many optional ones, combined with a greater focus on practical lessons, would certainly make high school fruitful for students. And it would potentially open the door for the production of new knowledge.

Focus on critical thinking

The lingering impact of the traditional gurukula system of learning means that students asking critical questions in class is still considered anathema. The same is the case even in elite institutions promoting Western-style education.

Starting my Master’s degree at Oxford, I really struggled to write biweekly essays after reading over 10 or 20 books and journal articles. There were two reasons for this. First, I realised that I’d never learnt to analyse ideas critically. I’d done quite well in Nepal in terms of taking down notes and reading books. I’d mastered the skill to understand someone’s ideas and reproduce the same on exam papers.

Second, and importantly, I had not been taught to produce my arguments in a proper academic manner. I didn’t know how to develop my arguments, how to conduct a literature review and even how to properly reference my reading list! I confess: part of it may be my own weakness. But, generally, Nepali schools and colleges have limited spaces for such critical areas of academic work. We are taught to gain as much knowledge as possible, but not to develop new knowledge.

Many people pursuing their master’s and doctoral degrees at Tribhuvan University and other institutions likewise suffer from a lack of academic skills. This is not really their fault: It’s the fault of our education system, starting from high school.

To conclude, we have a brand new government led by non-elite and young leaders. The education minister has done a commendable job by deciding to publish the SEE results in a month, instead of the usual two to three months. That’s wonderful. But he must now work towards making high school education more enjoyable and productive.