Article Marsyangdi Campus Journal

Egocentric Barriers in Academic Institutions of Nepal

                                                                                                 -   Sashi Raj Ghimire

                                                                                    Lecturer, Ishaneshwar Campus, Lamjung

Abstract

          Hot discussions regarding the quality of education in Nepal pervades all over the country as formal education falls back to contribute for significant changes and prosperity of the country for over many decades. Several researches indicate different reasons behind this condition. However, the problem remains unresolved. Therefore, this paper attempts to study the problem in a new mode, and discovers egocentric attitudes of the workforce of academic institutions mainly responsible for this problem. Egocentrism is such a psychological barrier which causes the manifestations of many adverse effects in the process of pedagogical practices in both schools and colleges. The efforts to remedy such egocentric barriers in time may bring standard in Nepalese education.  

 

Entry

Generally, three core entities occupy people's mind.  Few of the people attempt to review the past, some look happy to weave dreams of future and many more plague themselves with the present. Despite momentous joy, almost all people living in the present ponder how to combat with the current challenges and problems. In comparison to the past, modern people are doomed to face many more anxieties.  They really worry to decipher the reasons and ways of resolving them so tactfully. This common pattern of life applies to all sphere people, and in Nepal it looks more pervasive in the sector of education.

          The talk of education (both school and college) is not confined only to the circle of educationalists, professors, teachers, guardians and students these days. The talk is extended to the common public too. Even layman and split shopkeepers express their aggressions and raise questions about educational outputs in Nepal. This hot discussion widely in public hints the seriousness of the issue. People obviously doubt over the quality of education. Is it practical? Has it produced skillful manpower for the socio-economic transformation of the society? Are the school and university graduates able to be self -employed? Have they developed creativity and innovation?  These complaints and aggressive reactions are the objective realities of the land. At the same time, several researches have strongly backed up these genuine arguments. Let's have a glance of these two figures:

 

 

 

Figure : A ( source: en.unesco.org, 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report)

 

 

 

Figure B:

Figure A above reports the problem of learning crisis in the world. It suggests how South Western Asia is severely hurt by the problem of lack of effective learning after Sub-Saharan Africa in the world. In other words, Nepal is closer to the condition of poor and underdeveloped countries of Africa. It is further justified by Figure B displaying the number of outbound mobility of Nepali students seeking higher education abroad. Very unfortunately, school education suffers from learning crisis like from current Corona pandemic, and domestic universities are not trusted by the youths at the same time. Thus, both the figures indicate the ground realities of meager condition of either school and university education in modern Nepal.

Similarly, according to the Flash Report of 2019, published by the Department of Education Nepal, though there is a significant increase in intake rates both in grade 10 and grade 12, students' survival rate has just slightly increased to 58.5%, and 22.2% in grade 10 and 12 respectively. Secondary level school completion rate increases just to 27.2% (MICS-2019. National Planning Commission). Similarly, Various reports show low overall graduation rate in tertiary education as another major problem in higher studies. Though the pass rate varies institution and stream wise, it is critically low in average as suggested by Tribhuvan University results, where vast majority of students enroll every year. Now the question arises where these missing students are and what they are doing.  What are the reasons for these occurring despite huge state investments?

Encounter

The reasons behind this concern of learning crisis, poor pass rates in higher studies and outbound mobility of higher studies students might include the widespread unemployment of the school and college pass-outs in the country, and the prospects of better education and employment opportunities abroad. It is claimed that more than Four million people still work abroad especially in gulf countries and almost Two million people work and study in European, American and other countries of the world. America, Australia, Canada, Britain, Japan, India and China are reported as the major destinations for the latter two million people (UIS,2017). These facts definitely justify some problems in the academic sector of Nepal.

None of the agents and agencies are ready to take the responsibility of the degradation of educational standards. Traditionally, they busy in charging one another. School level senior workforce raise questions about the performance of junior colleagues that they send students without achieving basic learning outcomes. Likewise, university workers blame school teachers for not equipping students with level wise competencies. Some people curse the policy makers and some others the politics and politicians. However, the problems revolve in a circle for over many decades.

          General arguments go on to reveal the reasons of poor-quality education in Nepal. The so-called experts and educationalists argue that it is due to the lack of adequate funding for education in comparison to other sectors. Consequently, academic institutions lack suitable infrastructures like perfect classrooms, libraries and labs, and trained teachers who are capable for effective teaching. Neither education becomes inclusive, student-friendly, practical and output oriented.  

In an attempt to seek research- based answer, A Journal of Management, Pravaha Journal-2018, also points out a few reasons behind the degradation of educational standards in Nepal. The journal intensifies traditional reasons and mentions, "The problems plaguing the educational system of Nepal are multidimensional like population explosion, lack of resources, non- participation of the private sector, scarcity of qualified man power, inconsistency in policies of various regimes, political instability, inefficient educational management system, wastage of resources, and poor implementation of policies and programs, etc. (pg.98)"

          In contrast, this is a time to review this thinking paradigm, and it is the urgency to conduct research in a new mode due to various factual reasons. Especially, after the intervention of School Sector Reform Project in 2009 to 2015(2066-2-72 BS) followed by the ongoing School Sector Development Project in school education, drastic changes have been occurred in literacy rate, enrollment rates and gender parity. Besides, most of school buildings were made of RCC. They have been further furnished well and equipped with library and lab facilities. After massive earthquake of 2072, more than 4000 school buildings have been reconstructed. Both SSRP and  SSDP trained the teachers, and the index of trained teaching force reached 97.29% in primary level and 88.70% in secondary level (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, http://UIS.unesco.org).  In the same manner, in the case of university education, Higher Education Reform Project (HERP) 2015 geared up immense development for both physical infrastructures and human resources. According University Grant Commission 73 campuses including 60 community campuses with high flow of students and 13 TU constituent campuses got tremendous support from the project and transformed themselves in infrastructures and other resources. Therefore, those traditional barriers for quality education have massively been broken. Moreover, the projects are still running for reformation of school and university education. and most of the above barriers of infrastructures have been overcome. Educational scenario has been tremendously changed. Academic institutions are duly equipped with physical infrastructures and trained human resources.

 On the other, the problem of quality education remains the same. The survival rate of the enrolled students in school education is still considerably low. Pass percentage of school graduates ranges from 30-40% in average (Education in Figure 2017). Very few of the graduates develop entrepreneurship. Similarly, the college graduates also remain unemployed and out of any business. Thus, the domestic academic institutions suffer a lot from the failure of producing capable human resources for the socio-economic transformation of the country. In addition, these institutions are losing the credibility from the public and the productive youths are escaping the homeland.

          In this context, definitely, the existing manpower of the education sector namely principals and teachers should be questioned for their failure roles to instrumentalize the available resources for better output. They are the first persons in the frontline to execute the designed curriculum and prepare man power accordingly. Therefore, this study focuses on the factors behind this inefficiency of the educational workforce (principals and teachers). There may be several factors working behind. However, mainly it is not because of the lack of resources as discussed above, but because of the egocentrism fostering in this existing manpower.

Egocentrism

          No one can deny the fact that the fate of an institution/ organization relies on its workforce. It is because their devotion and priority can easily accelerate the better output of the institution, at the same time, their sluggishness plays a great role to degrade the organization by no minute. This disparity between devotion and sluggishness depends on the driving impulses of the workers towards their works. Therefore, it is the matter of psychology, but not physiology and physicality, which influences more the performance of the workers in a stage of institutional development.  Almost unanimously, scholars of psychology keep the notion that outward manifestations i.e. activities, character and behavior of the people are widely guided by inner thoughts and aptitudes. Educational leaders and teachers in schools and colleges of Nepal undergo similar predicament. Owing to this notion, the problem of substandard education in Nepal emerges from the egocentric attitude and behavior of the academic workforce, mainly principals and teachers because they are overtly seen egocentric.

          The word Egocentric is a psychological term. It is derived from egocentrism. Egocentrism means someone's inability to understand another person's view or opinion. This inability persists when the view is different from his/her own view. It represents a cognitive biasness, which assumes that other people also share the same perspective as they do. At the same time, egocentric persons become unable to imagine that other people would have a perception of their own.  Wikipedia also mentions egocentrism as the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality or, inability to understand any perspective different from one's own. Moreover, the people who possess or collect this inability are egocentric.  Cambridge International Dictionary of English defines, egocentric persons as selfish persons who only think of themselves. And of course, despite the soaring quantity, the quality of education in Nepal is being degraded due to this egocentric workforce influential in academic institutions.

          Vice -chancellors of universities, Principals, professors and teachers all seem egocentric. The understanding of egocentric attitude links to the term ego. Ego means   the 'self', especially with a sense of self-importance. In simple words, ego gives the sense of 'who am I (thinking of own's self only)?' Everyone identifies himself/herself in relation to different entities like power, prestige, gender, etc. These can be understood as the sources of ego. In other words, egocentric attitude of the people emerges from various sources like politics, power, property, permanency, periodical promotions, etc. in their academic institutions. Then the workers like to introduce themselves not with their profession but with the source of their ego. They develop a mindset that profession is just granted by grace of the sources of ego not by their own working efficiency. They strongly believe that being loyal to the source makes them far stronger. Therefore, they think of being responsible to the source, but not to the profession to be truly professional. They assume job is a basis and by nature they can continue it without any interruptions. Further, they grow up a misconception that no one dares to question them. So, they can proceed selfishly.

 For example, a teacher of a university or a school thinks that he/she is a permanent teacher. No one can challenge his/her placement; the ego of permanency. Then he/she starts running after politics and politicians, and dreams of being a parliament member or minister in future. This implies the ego of power and politics. Someone other from the same institution runs after tuition and coaching classes outside in order to earn more. He/she thinks of having more wealth for living a more fashionable and comfortable life. Besides, he/she starts comparing himself/herself with the others in matters of wealth, and decides why not buy a piece of more land in cities. This stands as the ego of property. A few other workers do not seem hardworking and responsible because they claim that they are the seniors, and they definitely deserve periodical promotions. This refers to the ego of seniority. Ego of seniority begets superiority. Ultimately, one copies the another and egocentric attitudes pervade almost all the workforce because they involve in communicating by various platforms, means and media. The most detrimental agents, to foster egocentrism amidst the manpower of academic milieu, seen in Nepal are mushroom like trade union organizations established to support certain political parties, but very rarely advocative and protective to their professional adherents.

 

Effects

The pervasive nature of egocentrism among the workforce makes them impaired and more inefficient in their works. Despite compulsions, they gradually develop indifference to their main task of effective planning, leading and teaching. Consequently, Campus chiefs and headteachers take up their chairs without making any sound plans to execute for the betterment of their institutions. Compulsory provisions like making SIP (School Improvement Plan) and CIP (Campus Improvement Plan) are confined to documents only. The documents are designed for the sake of documents, and only to accept the grants disbursed by the government, and sometimes by nongovernment agencies too. Since the chair of the chiefs of academic institutions is not periodical, they attempt to reserve more power in order to sustain longer in the chair, and impose power on the juniors. No one thinks that limited period given to him/her should be utilized to present a role-model of academic development for the upcoming generation. It happens because of their sickness of being egocentric/selfish. Consequently, they focus on individual interest subordinating to public interest i.e. the interest of the institution.

The heads of the academic institutions of Nepal, either of a school or a college deviate themselves from their main roles being egocentric. Their vaulting ambition to sustain the chair throughout the whole service term compel them to link themselves to various sources of ego and become egocentric. In other words, they become selfish. They do not focus on the institutional development, rather they work to please the big bosses who created the source of the ego for them, or supported to have access to the sources of the ego. For them, institutional growth with regulatory norms like accountability, transparency, punctuality, self- appraisal, etc. comes under second priority. They focus on enjoying their sources of ego to gain personal interest and benefits.

Sometimes and in some senses, egocentric thinking is considered as a natural tendency. It is said to contribute for the development of academic institutions because the success of what is done in the school or college is attributed to the principal. Therefore, they strive to promote academic performances. They possess pivot role around which many aspects of the institutions revolve. They are the in-charge of every academic or administrative activities. Indeed, the success of an academic institution lies in the leadership, and it is appraised against the performance of the leader. Unfortunately, when such leaders deviate the mode of their performance the standard of education obviously declines and happening the same in Nepal.

Not only the leader of academic institutions but also the rest, namely teachers, are also egocentric. Either they teach in a university or a school, the predicament looks the same because they show great craze to politics, power, permanency, and periodical promotions. Some of them boast of their seniority which ultimately transforms itself to superiority. Ludicrously, the teachers contest to show the talent of being egocentric. Being arrogant, they compete to accomplish their selfish wishes and desires, but not to invite and implement innovative ideas, methods and techniques to make students learn effectively. They remain backward in making teaching student friendly. Neither they respect and follow the authority nor they leave mocking at innocent and hardworking fellow workers, nor they stop arguing nonsense and backbiting the leaders and administration. Rather they develop the hypocrisy of 'Mr. Know All'. Instead of preparing for effective classes like making plans, collecting materials, choosing right methods, approaches and Techniques, developing objective and reliable test items, foster better learning environment, these egocentric teachers view everything in relation to oneself only. Job is there, salary is there, then why to respect work ethics? The ego is fostered and fostered.  This type of thinking leads them to the inability to sympathize with others or analyze and evaluate various perspectives. Then they fail to transform themselves to handle dynamic and curious students in the one hand, and develop teaching strategies pursuing the latest changes in pedagogical practices on the other. Sadly, most of these teachers are not willing or cannot see this character flaw within themselves.

 In this sense, teacher is more responsible for effective learning. It is generally argued that change starts with a great teacher. "A growing body of evidence suggests the learning crisis, is, at its core, a teaching crisis. For students to learn, they need good teachers…" (World Bank Report 2019). However, most of the teachers negate the concept of team work by sharing visions, capability and collaboration. They happen to disregard collective performances to enhance educational standard. As a result, this increases the difficulty in overcoming educational barriers.

Teachers are the first agent to execute educational plans to bring targeted changes among the young learners, but their egocentric nature ultimately hampers the whole system of education and educational outputs. Therefore, "to support countries in reforming the teaching profession, the World Bank is launching 'Successful Teachers, Successful Students.' This global platform for teachers addresses the key challenges of making all teachers effective…"(World Bank Report 2019).

Exit

Quality of education always stands as an abstract and never resolving issue in the world because it lacks fix and unanimous parameters to be defined. It is a relative concept and always redefined with some contextual needs and notions. In this sense, the substandard of education in Nepal has been a matter of public discussion in later decades as it failed to contribute for the socio-economic transformation of the country increasing the widespread problem of unemployment, rush of foreign employment and brain-drain. There may be several reasons behind this degradation. Never the less the main agents and agencies to handle it cannot escape from the burden of their responsibilities. Among these agents and agencies, leaders of academic institutions and teachers are primarily questioned. They are the first agents to implement the whole educational plans in the field. Their active working with full honesty in job definitely brings positive results otherwise the system fails to give better outputs. In this context, the study of available facts and figures refers a great problem with principals and teachers of schools and colleges engulfing their performance. These academic forces are unnecessarily seen egocentric. They look indifferent to their main duty, run after different sources of ego, and foster their ego and egocentric attitudes. As a result, the standard of education in Nepal is being degraded these days. To repair the loss and make the condition better, the chiefs of different universities, professors, lecturers, headteachers and teachers of all schools in Nepal have to forsake the egocentric attitudes in practice. They have to be truly professional and march ahead with full buoyancy, honesty and professional ethics.

References/works cited

          Education in Figure 2017, Department of Education Nepal

en.unesco.org, 2020.  Global Education Monitoring Report

          Flash Report of 2019, Department of Education Nepal

https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/immersive-story/2019/01/22 /    

https://wenr/wes.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/

          MICS-2019. National Planning Commission, Nepal

          http://UIS.unesco.org UNESCO Institute for Statistics

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentrism

          Procter, Paul and teams (Eds). (1996). Cambridge International Dictionary of   

                        English. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.

          www.nep.jol.info>index.php>pravaha>article>view

          www.ugcnepal.edu.np>Ugc-header-images (Higher Education Reform Project)