It is said “Education is the backbone of a country,” and this aphorism cannot be ignored. It is at the core of our work here in Nepal. Recently, Nepal has been seeing a greater focus on education and literacy, especially for women. While private education is available, it is expensive and often reserved for the elite. Free public schooling, however, is guaranteed up to Class 10 by the Ministry of Education. The breakdown of public school education is as follows:

Grades 1-5 are considered Primary education and their main objective is to teach the children to read, write, and do arithmetic. Secondary education, or Classes 6-8, emphasize personality development and training students for higher learning. For Classes 9 and 10, or Upper Secondary, the students are taught the stepping stones which bridge the gap towards higher secondary level coursework. During these Higher Secondary grades (Classes 11 and 12), core subjects are of a chosen track.

The following table shows the respective level of education system in Nepal:

The subjects taught at the Primary level include the learning of stories, poems, and small biographies with coursework such as simple essays, exercises, etc. all completed in Nepali. In Mathematics, students learn simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and word problems. Students then learn how to read and write simple poems, essays, stories, grammar work, etc. in English. They become acquainted with the study of plants, animals, and humans in Science. In Social Studies, they are taught about the communities, festivals, customs, social beliefs, and so on of their own culture as well as others. Additionally, practical topics such as health, hygiene, and the environment are taught alongside non-compulsory subjects like  moral science and general knowledge.

Once the student enters the Secondary level, their prior coursework is continued and added upon. Furthermore, they enter new fields of study like physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy in Science class or ratios, unitary methods, percentages, angles, and algebra in Math.