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In the context of educational globalization and increasing dominance of supranational organizations in educational governance, least developed countries (LDCs) have faced a new level of tension about whether their educational policies should follow the global educational models or seek solutions of their multifarious problems by promoting local indigenous literacy practices. This article critically analyzed key educational policy documents produced by major supranational organizations and selected LDCs and argues that the deficit perspective in education started in the colonial period and institutionalized during the structural adjustment period has shaped literacy policies and practices even after the 1990s. The article concludes with an appeal for developing contextually relevant literacy policies and programs through an asset perspective; and provides directions for further research for exploring LDCs' literacy policies.

The problem of academic dishonesty in general and exam cheating in particular, has been ubiquitous in schools, colleges, and universities around the world. This paper reports on the findings from teachers' and students' experiences and perceptions of exam cheating at Nepali schools, colleges, and universities. In so doing, the paper highlights the challenges of maintaining academic integrity in Nepali education systems. Based on qualitative research design, the study data were collected by employing semi-structured interviews with the teachers and the students. Findings from the study indicated that over-emphasized value given to marks/grades and the nature of exam questions among others were the predominant factors. Our findings contribute to the practical understanding that academic institutions in Nepal have largely failed to communicate the value of academic honesty and integrity to the students of all levels of education despite the increasing prevalence of exam cheating. Therefore, exam cheating requires urgent attention from academic institutions, educators, and education leaders to educate students about the long-term educational and social values of academic honesty and integrity.

With the change in socio-political and educational contexts in global academia, the trend of writing academic papers has arisen among Nepali students and educators in higher education. However, many of them are still unfamiliar with the basic standard to be incorporated in an academic paper. In this context, this study examined the post-graduate students' errors in writing research proposals. A textual analysis method was employed, where quantitative phase of analysis was followed by qualitative, and the data were collected from 24 purposively selected research proposals and from the interview with 10 students. The quantitative data were gathered from content analysis of the research proposals and qualitative data were collected from the unstructured interview. The collected proposals were studied, erroneous expressions were listed and categorized in to four parameters like grammatical errors, lexical semantic errors, mechanic errors and syntactic errors. The information from the interview was recorded, noted and analyzed. The results exhibited that (1) article and preposition usages were more persistent grammatical errors; (2) run-ons and fragmentation were more reiterated syntactic errors; and (3) uses of single lexical items were more common lexical-semantic errors and punctuation was the more regular mechanical errors. These findings reveal that students have insufficient knowledge and skills for academic writing. Therefore, they need academic writing courses, training, or workshops from the early level of their schooling. The findings of this study are useful for curriculum designers, policymakers, instructors, and students because it provides significant information on the building blocks experienced by English language learners in writing research paper.

This paper attempts to reflect on how international education has come to be imagined as a quest for 'greener pastures' by many young Nepalese who are on the move in what is increasingly described as a 'globalized world'. Networking and engaging deeply in social, cultural and sporting rituals with the Nepalese students in Copenhagen, first as an Erasmus Mundus fellow from 2006 to 2008 and then as a doctoral student from 2011 to 2015 accompanied by a fieldwork in Nepal, this paper examines how international education has come to serve this diasporic desire for many young Nepalese.

Reflective practice can guide educators toward enhancing their abilities, comprehension, and expertise, reflecting on their experiences to grow personally, professionally, and academically, thereby elevating the overall standard of their work. This paper aims to narrate the perception, practice, challenges, opportunities, and outcomes of reflective practices among STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) educators in Nepal. Using narrative inquiry, we explored the reflective practice experiences of four STEAM educators, (three female and one male). Interview guidelines were used as a data collection tool to generate the participants' narratives. The guiding theoretical referents for this study were Dewey's theory of experience and Mezirow's transformative learning theory. The findings of this study show that STEAM educators perceived reflective practice as a tool to reflect on their actions, evaluate them, and learn from their experiences. Participants emphasized that teaching is a dynamic job with many challenges; however, reflective practices helped them realize their weaknesses and refine their efforts to create a better learning environment. It also enabled them to shift from traditional pedagogical practices to progressive ones, where learners were empowered through authentic and meaningful engagement in the learning process. Time management was seen as a significant challenge when practicing reflective practices; sometimes, the ego clash demotivated them to reflect on their actions. Despite challenges, participants also accepted that reflective practices allow them to explore and apply new ideas in their profession and transform their practices. Consequently, the perspectives offered in this paper may prove beneficial for other educators in cultivating reflective practitioners.

This paper presents the use of translanguaging in the assessment of content subjects in the context of Nepal's higher education. Since its proposition in the 1990s, translanguaging has been receiving much scholarly attention in multilingual educational contexts. In such contexts, individuals' language practices show a shift from the understanding of languages as separate autonomous systems to the recognition of integrated and heteroglossic practices. Drawing on the analysis of relevant policy documents and examinees' answer sheets of formative assessment, and interviews with eight purposively selected teacher educators teaching at the master's level at a university in Nepal, this paper reports that examinees' translanguaging practices in responding to assessment questions exhibit their translanguaging instinct resisting unplanned English-prioritised monolingual policies. It also reveals fluidity and simultaneity in examinees' use of diverse linguistic resources defying demarcated language boundaries as aspired by the institution's English-prioritised policies. The study further reports layered translanguaging exercised by examinees which educators acknowledged as an attempt to enhance efficacy in content communication. Examinees' translanguaging practices and educators' acknowledgment of translanguaged writing indicate collective resistance from the bottom-up countering monoglossic ideologies in assessment systems. This implies consideration of examinees' and educators' roles in promoting translanguaging for future language policy changes to facilitate effective assessment.

This paper uses narrative inquiry to explore the formal-informal learning continuum in the context of a higher education institution in Kathmandu, Nepal. The paper finds a gap within the official curriculum and pedagogy in its lack of recognition for informal ways of learning. Similarly, the everyday life activities and the cultural context of youth are not reflected within the formal structure of university programmes. Youth learn from collaborating with their peers in informal and incidental ways. Such informal ways of learning complement and contest the formal learning situation and process. The research concludes that for higher education to be relevant to youth, attention needs to be paid to these forms of informal learning that reflect their everyday learning and prepare them for lifelong learning.

This paper outlines the different aspects of language contact in Newar, the ethnic indigenous language community of the Kathmandu valley, focusing on language use and attitudes. The data were collected in 2016-2017 with the help of survey questionnaire, key informant interviews, informal interviews, and various observations based on the socio-ethnographic research on language contact situations in different domains, namely social, cultural, economic, and official as well as media-related activities where the informants were asked to use different languages along with the use of their own mother tongue, i.e. Newar. The findings mainly include various traits of language use and attitudes of the Newar-speaking people living in the capital city in which the people are shifting towards Nepali, English, and Hindi languages because of media, migration, globalisation, education, and other factors. The paper concludes by providing some clues to preserve and revitalise minority languages that have been shifting, changing, and dying because of various socio-political reasons in the multilingual cities like Kathmandu where language policies have been dramatically changed and get the attention of public discourses to understand the dynamic nature of language contact.

Scholars have long considered the era of modern education in Nepal as inaugurated by foreign actors in the 1950s. Based on an analysis of two central publications of the relatively overlooked educator and intellectual Jaya Prithvi Bahadur Singh, this paper aims to shed new light on the educational history of the early twentieth century Himalaya. By employing a lens of global history, the study challenges the narrative of a 'sudden arrival' of modern education in Nepal in 1950s. In doing so, the paper aims to demonstrate the relevance of Singh's thought to the global emergence of modern, progressive, and humanistic forms of education in the early twentieth century.

In this study, the implementation of a STEAM project was critically examined, with constructivist grounded principles utilized to inform the perspective of both a learner and a STEAM practitioner. A comprehensive project plan was devised that incorporated CAP domains through the integration of the STEAM praxis with peer and self-assessment strategies for school-level science education. This innovative approach, aimed at nurturing the aesthetic value in arts and the evaluation process, led to the creation of a unique methodology for assessing students' cognitive and psychomotor skills. The framework for accessing students' peer/self-evaluation via meticulously designed rubrics is further highlighted. The implementation of a project plan proved to be an interactive and insightful process, fostering a profound understanding of students' concerns and interests. This study underscores the transformative potential of the STEAM approach in educational settings, highlighting its role in promoting critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills among students. [This article was presented at Conference on Recent Trends in Science, Technology, and Innovation-2024, held in-person in Pokhara 33700, Nepal on February 22, 2024.]

Place-based knowledge, a legacy from our ancestors, is inherently sustainable. However, modern lifestyles have eclipsed this wisdom, leading to environmental issues such as land and water pollution. Similarly, the current pedagogical practices often fail to connect place-based knowledge. It resulted in a deviation of students' contextual learning. Thus, this paper explores the integration of place-based knowledge into pedagogy, fostering students' contextual engagement and promoting sustainable living. The guiding research questions for this study are how can integration of place-based knowledge in the pedagogical practice lead to contextualized learning and sustainability? and how can researchers, teachers, and community members incorporate place-based knowledge into pedagogical practices for contextualized learning and sustainability? This article identifies pertinent issues by subscribing to participatory action research and devises collaborative solutions with teachers, co-researchers, and the community. The study involved four teachers from a seventh-grade class in a school in Lalitpur, Nepal. The findings revealed that integrating place-based pedagogical practices helped students connect with their ancestors' knowledge about their local and its relationship with nature, thereby facilitating contextual knowledge construction. This study asserts that integrating place-based knowledge into pedagogical practices equips learners to effectively address present and future environmental issues.

This paper analyses university teachers and students' experiences of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal and presents post-pandemic implications. Potential ramifications of the findings in a normal setting were suggested by the analysis of data gathered through semi-structured interviews with participants both during and after the pandemic, as well as through observation of online classes during the period. Findings demonstrate teachers' ability to create online learning, an alternative mode to a physical classroom, during the pandemic while having an inadequate level of ICT understanding. Despite limited access to digital technology and no administrative assistance, teachers and students created an online learning environment. Findings, however, show an increasing digital gap between rural and urban areas. The discontinuation of effective online learning techniques in the post-pandemic circumstances produced by the teachers during the pandemic pointed out the issues of reforming higher education in developing countries such as Nepal.

This paper is an outcome of using GeoGebra in Nepal's grade ten math curriculum (CDC, 2015). Based on a teaching experiment as one of the research methodologies (Dahal, 2019; Dahal et al., 2019; Dahal et al., 2022a), this paper provides students with active learning environments and the possibility of integrating GeoGebra as an ICT application by documenting the experiences, assessment procedures, emotions, and behaviors, as well as the learning process of eighteen secondary level students (ten boys and eight girls). In this regard, GeoGebra is a computer and online-based application that teaches geometry, algebra, and statistics. GeoGebra's features could help students visualize abstract geometric concepts quickly, correctly, and effectively (Tamam & Dasari, 2021, Dahal et al., 2022a). Theoretically grounded on social constructivism, this paper informs that GeoGebra helps students recall and understand circle terminology, encourages engaged learning through group work, and promotes meaningful learning, conceptual learning, learner-centered teaching, and student motivation. The benefits of using GeoGebra to teach and learn the circle concepts are demonstrated in the experimental classes and reported in this paper. Students become more active builders of the mathematical knowledge of the circle while teaching/learning the concepts of the circle using GeoGebra. It is a crucial ICT tool for supporting innovative approaches to teaching and learning mathematics in the twenty-first century.

Facebook Live has become a means of teaching and learning in many parts of the world. This paper, thus, reports an examination of teaching English through Facebook Live and students' experiences of learning on it in the COVID-19 pandemic. It as participatory action research employed observation of self-managed Facebook Live streaming, and an online semi-structured interview with students and parents. The intervention of Facebook Live consisted of three strategies: pre-recorded video streaming, live teaching and a combination of both. This paper reports on how students in absence of a physical classroom learned English through Facebook Live, developed communicative skills and gained ICT skills. Although the teacher's lessons on Facebook Live were appreciated by students and parents as students could get ideas for speaking English, students expressed concerns if they could interact with the teacher and friends. Facebook Live associated with videoconferencing tools, however, can complement physical classroom learning in crises and normal situations.

This paper explores the paradigm shift in using ICT tools while teaching mathematics remotely within the TPACK framework. Remote teaching is not only one of the primary modes of teaching and learning in the present context throughout the world but the transition from paper to the digital world, where mathematics teachers struggle to visualize the content concisely and clearly. This paper focuses on promoting pedagogy and learning and learner empowerment by emphasizing autonomy and engagement rather than technology. The ethos of this paper is all about encouraging the mathematics teachers to promote the students for quality engagement while teaching remotely. However, all the remotely leading ICT tools require some techniques and methodologies, thereby the mathematics teachers' skill, experience, and expertise. Those skills, experiences, and expertise will be developed by excelling in mathematics teachers' ICT tools. This paper shall be one of the guiding principles for mathematics teachers (but not limited to) while dealing with the mathematics content remotely and/or in any other mode.

I approach this paper from a critical retro-reflective stance, which explores borders both physical and educational through my pedagogical experiences in a high school in India, home experiences in the geographical borderlands of Nepal and India, and my current work in Nepal and the United States. All of the anecdotes or data originate from my personal experiences that include my siblings, friends, neighbors, teachers, and students. Through these anecdotes, I attempt to show how multiple facets of border pedagogy influence what happens at the socio-psychological level and in science teaching and learning contexts. Critical retro-reflective pieces presented in this paper exemplify complex nature of complementarities and contradictories of identity, pedagogy, history, economics, culture, and experiences in classrooms, communities, and other cognitive spaces. Furthermore, what possibilities of border pedagogies and spaces exist that enhance science teaching and learning for equity and social justice. In the context of science education, there have always been struggles to find legitimate teaching and learning environments in which students are encouraged and supported to challenge dominant ways of knowing and understanding. Therefore, retro-reflective approach allows me to examine how geographical borders, in this case Nepal-India, and science classrooms as intellectual borders, present opportunities and struggles to deconstruct oppressive systems and reconstruct possibilities for socially just science learning spaces. The process of reflection aids in reexamining my own relationship to culture, language, history, and local economy with science education.

The major analytical research question addressed in this paper is: What are Thailand's strengths and weaknesses as an international education hub for students from the Asian region? The key descriptive research question is: What is the nature of the educational experience of Asian students in Thailand? The two major research methodologies of the study are mixed research methods and comparative case studies, with the use of in-depth interviews of influential experts, surveys, and an autoethnography. In terms of major findings, there has been a dramatic growth of Asian students at Thai universities during the past two decades. Thailand's major advantages relate to low costs, location, quality campus facilities, and a welcoming attitude toward outsiders, while major disadvantages are the quality of many of Thailand's international programs often related to low English language capabilities. The paper concludes by presenting a creative new architecture for thinking about Asian study abroad in Thailand.

Almost all educational institutions across the globe jumped into online learning since the declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic. Nepali academic institutions from pre-primary schools to universities also entered into online learning. Such online learning aimed to control the educational damage threatened by the infectious pandemic and lingering lockdown. This study draws on 33 research papers to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) concerning online learning during COVID-19 in Nepal. In particular, the study investigates whether online learning created a digital divide or contributed to a positive contribution to the quality of delivery of education in Nepal in future. The systematic review finds that frequent power cuts, poor internet connectivity and inadequate ICT tools for online learning as the most common educational hindrances along with the loss of practical, applied activities and fieldwork for those studying technical subjects. The final SWOT analysis identified more weaknesses and threats in comparison to strengths and opportunities associated with online learning during COVID-19 in Nepal. However, if Nepal and her academic institutions minimize or redress the weaknesses, reinforce the existing strengths, institutionalize the opportunities, and mitigate the possible threats concerning online learning, the learning has the potential to become more effective. Certainly, there is a digital divide, but the study also identified the strengths and opportunities of online learning during COVID-19 that have stemmed the educational damage as a silver lining in the cloud of the Corona Virus.

Critical 'self' (i.e. dualist or egoist I) reflection seems insufficient in the context of Nepali university education, particularly in the process of transformative professional development. Therefore through this paper, I argue that a "critical-appreciative approach contributes to my professional development." Assuming 'Self' (i.e. non-dualist or non-egoist I) as a better form of 'self', I conducted a self-study examining my conflict (between egoist I and non-egoist I) enhancing integral perspective. For it, I posed the research question: "How could I nurture my integral perspective for my professional development in the higher educational context?" I adapted dialogue as a research method to explore the conflict between 'self' and 'Self' with the support of my embodied knowledge, reflective journal, assignments and articles. In this paper, I discuss how my critical-appreciative approach enhanced my 'self' and at times remained a living contradiction. Then I discuss the four approaches as themes (adapting inclusive perspectives, creating open space, using participatory-based approach and developing tactful mentorship) that provided me with a cultural (i.e. satvic) perspective as professional development. These themes seem useful for understanding 'self' and the rest in an optimal way while being in higher education.

Even though the documentation on the effects of the pandemic on educators is being done, enough spaces have not been provided to the female educators working in higher education in Nepal. In this paper, I attempt to explore the journey of navigating my emotions as an educator in Nepal working from home and hope to contribute to the broader discussions on emotions and emotional expressions. The context of this self-study is my life as an educator working in higher education between 29 March 2020 to 29 March 2021. This paper focuses on exploring the question, 'How did the reflections of my emotions during the time of pandemic help me reconstruct my identity as an educator?'. Written as a retrospective reflection on vulnerability, courage, and empathy, self-reflective diary entries were used for data analysis. The paper shows the gendered implication on the emotional expression on me as a female faculty and how it impacted my identity as an educational leader.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought chaos in education across the world, including developing countries like Nepal. To respond to this educational disruption in this South Asian country, different educational plans and policies were formulated by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Government of Nepal. It is not known whether these policies were realistic and practicable, as there is no review of these documents to date. With this backdrop, this paper critically reviews the educational plans and policies that were developed to manage education during the crisis. It appraises the strengths of these policies in terms of their intent and practicalities of implementation in the given situation, and identifies gaps and challenges, and recommends some ways to realistically run the education system. The review reveals that these documents have several strengths, such as they plan to create data in terms of learners' access to resources, value self-learning and parent education, and suggest several alternative ways to resume school. Yet, there are some gaps and challenges, the identification of which can guide the effective delivery of education in Nepal in any kind of crisis period both at present and in future. This paper is expected to help policy makers to revisit the existing policies or guide them when they form future educational policies that are designed to manage education in any kinds of crisis. It is also deemed helpful for teacher educators, practitioners and other educational stakeholders to understand about the educational plans and policies formed to deal with crises.

The author, having drawn examples from her doctoral study, describes how a thematic analysis approach was employed to interpret raw data in her doctoral study which explored the impacts of a high-stakes test on students and parents in Nepal. As the main purpose of this paper is to provide some guidelines for English language teaching (ELT) practitioners and early career researchers to rigorously apply a thematic analysis approach, this paper presents a step-by-step guideline for the application of the approach. It also presents detailed examples of the processes the author followed during the analysis of her data (from familiarising with the data to identifying initial codes to preparing a final report) to reveal how analysis of the raw data (from interviews and oral diaries transcripts) progressed towards the identification of overarching themes that captured the nature of the test impacts in the Nepalese context described by participants in the study.

In this paper, the authors explore how teachers and community members in Nepal come together to transform students' science teaching and science learning experiences. The community members, primarily parents of the students, took the opportunity to drive the kinds of science topics and the nature of science activities the teachers needed to teach in their children's science classrooms. This paper qualitatively documents the interactions between the teachers and the community members, the teachers' decisions regarding their science lessons, and the nature of critical consciousness discourses in teachers' built-in classroom interactions with students. The data were collected over 8 weeks through classroom observations, interviews, and student artifacts. The analysis showed that community-initiated partnership with science teachers builds science teaching that values critical community well-being and that the teachers have the agency to provide spaces for learning focused on critical consciousness. The paper uses transformative learning theory, liberation social psychology, and deliberative democracy as the guiding theoretical perspectives to understand transformative science teaching through teacher--community partnership.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the formal workplace learning situation in Nepal and argue that workplace learning is not in priority in Nepali Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) despite a regular policy emphasis. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered using both desk-based review of pre-diploma and diploma-level curricula and semi-structured interviews with eight employers and six technical school principals. Coded themes were interpreted in the meaning-making process. Findings: Workplace skills learning in Nepal has remained a neglected agenda. Despite some successful implementation practices and policy recognition, it is stagnated. Employers expect skills in graduates relevant to their demands. However, unfortunately, there needs to be more trust for a culture of shared responsibilities among employers and TVET providers for arranging the provisions so that the learners can acquire the skills that the employers need. There is a blaming game between them, which has ultimately resulted in the poor arrangement of workplace learning. Practical implications: TVET providers' and employers' engaged participation in recognizing and developing workplace learning for making the learning as per the needs of the world of work could benefit them and also support students to upgrade and acquire employability skills. Originality/value: This paper is based on empirical data and contributes new knowledge in academia which is still rare in the context of Nepal.

For several years, science and art have been viewed as separate entities in school education in Nepal. The dominant discourse on science was regulated by Western Modern Worldview (WMW), assuming that seeking universal truth should be the central aim of the exploration. In this article, science refers to the absolutist/rigid nature of different disciplines (such as Science and Mathematics) from the perspectives of Newtonian science, whereas art is viewed from three dimensions; literary arts (i. e. narratives, storing), visual arts (i.e., images, painting, sculpture) and performing arts (i.e., role play, drama). This paper argues that science and arts, as ways of knowing, should be taken as complements of each other. This literature-based argumentative paper also incorporates the lead author's experiences using art as/for pedagogical approaches in collaboration with schoolteachers. At the same time, the authors also argue the role of critical reflection to acknowledge both science and art as epistemology. The authors have used Dewey's perspectives on the roles of art for experiencing in education. Also, the notion of Mezirow's Transformative Learning is helpful as an influential lens to showcase the ever-changing thoughts in the transformation continuum. To set the context for the argumentation, the authors discussed the existing Nepali school education system, focused on curricula and pedagogical perspectives. The paper is helpful for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers to critically reflect on their own beliefs and practices in terms of viewing the different perspectives on STEM subjects and the inseparable relationship of science and art for knowledge generation and pedagogical application.

This paper examines different layers of participation while conducting Participatory Action Research (PAR). In the journey of three years of fieldwork with teachers, many realizations were made about becoming co-researchers and engaging in a collaborative knowledge-building process for developing an engaged pedagogical approach. The paper had two purposes: a) exploring the different layers of participation in PAR, and b) documenting the lead researcher's continuous professional learning in understanding PAR. The lead researcher proposed "ignoring" to "autonomous" participation as levels. The lead researcher also changed from overly influencing roles on PAR to accepting co-researchers' voices and respecting their efforts for sustainable change.

There is a dearth of knowledge on the emotional challenges content-area teachers in English-medium instruction (EMI) programmes face, and how they manage their emotions in their efforts to negotiate a top-down language policy. This paper examines the entangled emotional experiences of EMI content-area teachers in Nepal's school education. In contrast to a psychological approach to teachers' emotions, this article draws on sociocultural and ideological perspectives on emotions to unpack a connection between emotions, institutional language policies, language ideologies, identity, and teacher agency. The analysis of EMI teachers' emotional dynamics essentially identifies their emotions as 'entanglements,' reflecting the interconnectedness of emotions with other variables such as language ideology, identity, and agency in content-and-language-integrated education. The findings of this study showed that teachers' limited English proficiency led to negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, fear, frustration, and shame), stimulating them to use English-Nepali bilingualism as a creative strategy to manage their emotional challenges and also to exercise their agency in response to their students' needs. However, their translanguaging strategy -- which otherwise might have included the students' home language, Bhojpuri -- was restricted by hegemonic language ideologies. The findings show that multilingual teachers typically do not experience emotions in a vacuum but in response to other social phenomena. The paper supports the argument that teacher emotion management is not an apolitical process but is rather ideologically and discursively constructed and situated.

This paper focuses on the context underpinning the implementation of ethno science at the K-12 school science curriculum in the context of Nepal. Since human evolution, Indigenous people have both gained scientific knowledge and practiced scientific skills. This paper refers to this knowledge as Ethno Science/ Indigenous Wisdom. However, hegemonic Western Science (WS) knowledge and practices deny such indigenous wisdom. In Nepal, school science curriculum is designed to teach Western scientific methods. The recognition, utilization, and validation of Indigenous Knowledge within the science curriculum generate challenges to students and teachers alike. The concern is that the Indigenous students continuously underperform when taught using Western Science. The bright spot is when Indigenous students are taught Western Science with Ethno Science/ Indigenous Wisdom as the bridge-builder between these two systems of knowledge.

This paper presents a workflow integrating the linguistic software ELAN and FLEx. This workflow allows the user to move between these two software applications to refine the transcription, translation, and annotation of the speech of multiple participants. The workflow also enables the addition of multiple writing systems for vernacular and analysis languages. The paper is based on a manual that explains in a simple and visual manner how to achieve such a set-up in both ELAN and FLEx. The workflow allows language consultants to make changes and additions to transcriptions and translations in ELAN in a script and language that they are most comfortable with. In this way, the workflow fills a gap where language consultants with limited computer literacy and command of the major interface languages of software programmes can still work on the basic analysis of recordings of a language that they know well.

This paper addresses the paradox of transition to online distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries. The systematic review methodological procedures were employed to draw some limitations and possible opportunities that may inform future practices on online distance learning. The findings reveal several limitations such as digital inequalities, lack of reliable internet access, low readiness and technological competence among instructors and students, and limited availability of digital solutions. The findings also reveal that most students faced social emotional challenges due to rapid and blind transition to online distance learning. It was concluded that most limitations were due to lack of digital culture even before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. It is recommended that deliberate investment should be made to promote digital culture and equity. Further possible areas for research recommended in this paper include exploration of digital inclusion among marginalized groups in developing countries.

This research paper aims at exploring the teachers' perception and their conceptual understanding on local curriculum, importance of local curriculum and local curriculum development process in school education of Nepal. For this, the interpretive paradigm was adopted to explore the subjective realities concerned with the central phenomenon. Within this process, this qualitative phenomenological study collected the intense information through the in-depth interviews with the selected community schools' basic level teachers. Based on the information, three themes have been developed for presenting the results and discussion. The major findings of this study are that the teachers positively perceived the local curriculum for preserving the local knowledge, cultures as well as the tourism areas of a community. The teachers also perceived that the teachers, parents and community participation is also essential during the local curriculum development process as well as selection of local subject. Apart from these shining areas, they did not develop the local curriculum at school or local level. Instead of the local subject, English and computer subject were implemented in the name of optional subjects in grade one to five and six to eight respectively.

This paper explored and analyzed features of English pronunciation that could cause intelligibility problems for Nepali English learners (ELs), who use English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a second language (ESL). We examined the Nepali ELs' pronunciation issues by juxtaposing them with comparable segmental and suprasegmental features of the Nepali language. We found that Nepali has far less sound inventory and voiceless consonants than English, yet it has a lot of contrastive consonants. Similarly, the Nepali language has fewer vowels, minimal diphthongs, and no triphthongs. While both English and Nepali share limited suprasegmental characteristics, they do not complement each other. Given the distinctiveness in pronunciation of the two languages, Nepali ELs are likely to face several intelligibility challenges as they encounter other non-Nepali English users. Thus, they need knowledge and appropriate training to enhance intelligibility for effective communication in workplaces and academic spaces that promote English.

Mathematics evidenced un/manifested in/active, un/changeable, im/pure and primordial nature; therefore, it is illimitable to define as finite. It exists in the engineering of this universe. Philosophy of Mathematics studies abstract entities such as assumption and implication. Mathematics educators regard it as deductive tool and relate to solving the real-world problems. They tend to understand mathematics as already formulated syntax awaiting to be applied when needed. Notwithstanding, this paper emphasizes the purpose of learning mathematics as Supreme knowledge. The paper explores the ideal model of acquiring Supreme knowledge through mathematical pedagogy. The context of this study is developing a three-layered systematic model (Language to Syntax, Syntax to operation, and Operation to Visualization) in Mathematics Education; the model has been termed as DIN Mathematical model of pedagogy. The first layer brings about an input of mathematical language to Syntax, the second layer is about syntax to operation, and the third layer is about operation to visualization. Educators engage in the second layer in most of the time to solve the problems where learner inputs on the formulated syntax and find one-way output. Engaging in the second layer does not assist to create higher level of cognitive state of learners. In this case, the learner can not achieve a complete visualization of process of Mathematics learning. Therefore, learners may not achieve Supreme Knowledge. The DIN model proposes that the three parts creating by mental acts in mathematics education which leads the learners to the way of the Supreme Knowledge of mathematics.

The school mathematics curriculum development process in Nepal is still conventional. Contextualized mathematics teaching and learning has not been the priority of school education of Nepal. Majority of the school mathematics teachers in Nepal still conceptualize the mathematics and mathematics curriculum from the conformist approach. Thus, this paper aims to explore mathematics teachers' experiences on the nature of mathematics focusing on their curricular and pedagogical practices based on the research question how mathematics teachers experience the nature of mathematical knowledge during their curricular and pedagogical practices. Ernest's and Luitel's nature of mathematical knowledge has enabled me to evaluate teachers' experiences towards the nature of mathematical knowledge and Habermas's theory of knowledge constitutive interest has guided the research for knowledge and implied others' concept. The study has relied on the phenomenological approach and reflected the experiences of four mathematics teachers. The paper concludes that mathematics curriculum guided by emancipatory interest as well as practical interest promotes counter-hegemonic vision of teaching and learning mathematics and might develop critical consciousness. Critical consciousness embedded mathematics curriculum helps students and teachers to unpack the cultural nature of mathematics education and taken-for-granted assumptions about teaching and learning through critical pedagogy.

Background: The main aim of emergency medical services (EMS) should be to provide universal emergency medical care which is EMS system available to all those who need it. Most of the developed countries have an integrated EMS system that is accessible by a single dial number in the whole country. Nepal does not have a proper EMS system. We conducted a literature review regarding methods of developing an integrated EMS system in Nepal. Result: The fragmented system, high demand–low supply, inequity with the service, and inadequately trained responders are major problems associated with EMS in Nepal. Nepal too should develop an integrated single dial number EMS system to meet the current demand of EMS. Having a paramedic in ambulances as the first responders will prevent chaos and save critical time. Funding models have to be considered while developing an EMS considering the capital as well as operational cost. Conclusion: Nepal can develop a public private partnership model of EMS where capital cost is provided by the government and operational cost by other methods. Community-based insurance system looks more feasible in a country like Nepal for generating operational cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nutrition education at school can contribute to developing healthy nutritional behaviours in schoolchildren. This paper critically reflects on how participatory action research (PAR) empowered university researchers and a school community to co-develop a school-based nutrition education programme (SBNEP) that promotes healthy nutritional behaviours in basic-level schoolchildren (Grades 1-8). This study followed PAR as the methodological approach, where university researchers collaborated with the school stakeholders, also called 'co-researchers', to co-develop a SBNEP. This study was conducted in a public school located in the Chitwan district of Nepal from June 2018 to August 2022. The study involved basic-level schoolteachers, fourth to eighth-grade students and their parents/guardians, school leaders, and the PAR committee members as the co-researchers. The study used in-depth interviews, focus groups, participant observation, informal talks, and bridging-the-gap workshop methods. The interpretive phenomenological method was used to explain the meaning of the data. The findings of the study reflect that exploring the needs for good nutritional behaviours, prioritising them, and co-designing the SBNEP utilising the PAR methodology is a time-consuming project since it demands prolonged fieldwork, self-motivation, commitment, action with critical reflection (praxis), dialogic relation, and negotiation skills from both researchers and co-researchers. The study recommends that basic-level schoolteachers and researchers consider applying SBNEP using a participatory framework for transformational change in students' nutritional behaviours.