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On average, around 85 percent of public school teachers in Nepal are trained whereas the corresponding figure for private schools stands at around 15 percent. Public school teachers are better paid and have greater job security. Yet the public school system has consistently failed students. Before the SLC exams were phased out in 2016, only an average of 28 percent of public school students made it through the ‘Iron Gate’ for higher education. Our public school system has a huge management problem. Absenteeism is high both among students and teachers, and there is a general lack of discipline. Public school teacher unions are highly politicized and teachers use political connections to land secure jobs without much com­mitment to teach. In many cases, qualified teachers use an unqual­ified substitute to fill in while they go about other business. Again all these boil down to an ineffective school management that does not enforce rules and standards.

Private schools, on the other hand, are driven by profit and profit is directly linked to the performance of their students at regional and national level exams. But even the education the pri­vate schools provide (with some exceptions) cannot be called quality education by any stretch. What they are good at is getting students high marks in routine exams. There is very little critical thinking and problem-solving.

Still most students from pri­vate schools end up doing well academically and professionally. The same however isn’t true for students from public schools.Schools are supposed to pro­vide a level-playing field, yet our system does the opposite. It creates two classes of students (three, if you count the elite pri­vate schools).

To be fair, there have been efforts to reform school educa­tion but the problem is that they have been primarily focused on increasing enrollment. Some incremental reforms have been achieved through initiatives such as the School Sector Reform Program, but they do not go far enough. Nepal’s education system requires a massive overhaul, not gradual improvements.

There are several policy choic­es before the government, all of which require strong commit­ment to address head on the politicization of teachers’ union. One would hope that the new left government, which could have a two-thirds majority with Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum Nepal, would have no problem taking on the unions that have stalled reforms.

An autonomous school board or school management committee for public schools can be estab­lished—giving it broad authority to run its affairs, while linking grant transfers to performance stan­dards and enrolment rates. Par­allel to this, the government can bring another scheme involving a voucher system whereby anyone interested in enrolling their chil­dren in private schools receives a government voucher covering fees and other expenses but sub­ject to a means testing of income. These vouchers can be linked to the poverty card and nation­al social security register, which will reduce the cumbersome and lengthy process of means testing. This will force the public schools to remain competitive to receive grants or risk closure.

Clearly there is no one–size–fits– all solution. What will work in certain communities may not work in others. The key here is instilling a sense of competitive­ness in the public school system through different incentives, and linking them to the local gov­ernment’s overall performance. When the central government adopts required policy reforms, it can use conditional fiscal trans­fers to incentivize implemen­tation of these reforms. Where the first overhaul approach fails, the government could consider outsourcing the management of public schools to the private sec­tor—linking certain percentage of management fee to performance standards and enrollment rates. The idea of managing even a small percentage of nearly 30,000 com­munity schools, where the first option does not work, could be attractive for many private sector management companies.

Profits can drive competitive­ness. If spending a little more on management fee (increasing cur­rent education spending of about 4 percent of GDP to the global standard of 4.9 percent) delivers good education for the vast major­ity of students, wouldn’t that be a worthwhile investment?

Or ‘chada lok’ if you like. Call it what you may—it is dirty, it is sleazy, it is vulgar and from the looks of it, it is here to stay.Nepali lok-dohori is probably the most popular ethnic Nepali music, from the east to west, and religiously heard by those living abroad. With ethnic instruments like the maadal, dhime, panche baaja and sarangi in the background, couplets about love, village life, its struggle and even politics formed the lyrics of the Nepali lok music. Men singing about leaving their wife and children to find work in a foreign country, wom­en singing about how they miss their husbands gone in search of work, the socially oppressed expressing their woes through their songs and daughters-in-law lamenting about the hardships at their husbands’ were woven into stories which formed the base of the Nepali lok music genre.

It was basically our version of ‘the blues’. In a country with deep-root­ed cultural biasness and basically indoctrinated by religious mistrans­lations, ‘lok-dohori’ for our previous generations was also a medium of entertainment and courtship as mild flirtations and teasing from both gender was considered normal.

Things change, always, and they have changed drastically for the lok music industry. Well, with the digitization of music production, the ethnic instruments are losing their value to computer generated samples, drum and bass loops and heavily synthesized background (un)blended with high-pitched, auto-tuned vocals mouthing distort­ed and double-meaning lyrics.

All this accompanied by badly choreographed music videos with models and dancers wearing gaudy and skimpy clothes, and keener on exposing their body parts than on actual dance moves, give an idea of what a typical lok-dohori song of today is like. From a pure form of music, a voice for expression and opinion, the paradigm has shifted to Nepali lok-dohori music becoming a ubiquitous display of vulgarism and social perversions.

The meaningful and elegant­ly poetic compositions of Master Mitrasen Thapa, Jhalak Man Gan­darbha, Janakavi Keshari Dharma­raj Thapa, Hira Devi Waiba, Daizee Barailee and the likes of that era have been replaced by cheap, com­mercial excuses for songs that basi­cally circle around lust, sex, physical attraction and the many perversions of the ‘modern’ Nepali society.

Video has literally killed the radio star here as music listeners on Radio Nepal, the original promoter of Nepali folk music, have become obscure with YouTube replacing most radio stations and television channels. The need to make a music video for popularity has giv­en the lok-dohori scene an ugly identity because of the misguided effort of some notorious names in the industry.

Search “New Nepali Lok Dohori’’ on YouTube and out of the top 20 results, most will have a skimpi­ly clad woman on the display photo with double meaning song titles. Keep skimming through the searches and you will most proba­bly be led to a point where all the results you see are categorized as “Hot Nepali Lok Dohori” or “Sexy Nepali Lok Dohori”. And to add to this farce is the fact that these songs have hundreds of thousand views on YouTube.

So who is watching them? Sure­ly not someone who loves Nepali music or any other type of music. These music videos are ‘click baits’ created by pretentious marketers selling women’s body images in guise of music. The business now is completely based on exploiting the sexuality of women (our feminist friends should pay special attention to this) while fulfilling the obstinate desires of men and in due process, creating an uncouth image of the whole Nepali folk music industry.

The whole idea of sexualizing a traditional genre of Nepali in the name of modernization is infuriat­ing. But then again, we have democ­racy so there’s probably no stopping the assaulters in this case. The best we can do now is separate their genre from our Nepali lok-dohori and segregate them as “cringe folk’’ or “chadaa lok.’’

Over two recent weekends Kath­mandu saw its first and fabu­lous cabaret. Featuring dance, music, mime, and one-act plays it prompted me to think about all the wonderful art and cultural events that happen here. I think many people do not realize just how talented the Nepalis are as a nation. With an ancient tra­dition of wood and stone carving, thanka and religious paintings, architecture, bronzes, pottery etc, Nepal, and particularly, Kathmandu Valley, is a place with art and culture in its blood.

It’s no surprise then that there is so much talent among the youth as well. Art, music, drama, to name just a few, are not only vibrant but positively electric. I can say, and frequently do say, I am not an artiste (no talent, sob!). But I am what every artiste needs, the audience. And at that I am extremely experienced and talented!

Having said that, however, it can be so hard to keep up with all the social events happening around town. Maybe I should become a critic of the arts and actu­ally get paid to attend events. Now there’s a thought! I love to attend the theater and was really disappointed when my favorite, and ‘father’ of modern theatre in Nepal, Gurukul, had to give up its premises some years ago.

Meantime, Mandala, Shilpee and a few others are still going and have opened their doors to other groups to use their premises. While most of the theater groups produce in Nepali, there are one or two who do produce in English. But there is something refreshing about the audiences who go along to the Nepali productions.

They are, in general, young and enthusiastic with no pretentious intentions we often see at the the­aters in the West. They are there purely because they enjoy it. My lev­el of understanding varies depend­ing on the difficulty of the subject matter but regardless as to how much information I gain through my ears, the acting is of such a high standard, my eyes provide enough information to keep me engaged!

Sometimes there are stunning performances and theater events, such as ‘Arjuna’s Dilemma’ staged at Patan Museum, a collaboration of actors, musicians, dancers and opera singers from Nepal, US and Europe. Based on a text from the Bhagavad Gita this production was the first opera in Nepal and outdid itself visually and musically.

In the past Gurukul was host to an annual International Theater Festival with theatre groups coming from all around the globe. More local productions I have loved include an interesting adaptation of ‘Swan Lake’, and one where a char­acter zip-lined above the audience in a replica ropeway crossing the Karnali River.

Painting and installation art is another genre populated by very talented artists, and whether it is images of landscapes, portraits, or more contemporary styles such as a huge red rectangle painted onto the buildings of Kirtipur, there are frequent exhibition openings hap­pening around town. One of my favorites has come firmly onto the Kathmandu scene after a bit of a rocky start—street art.

A few years ago Color Kathmandu took to the streets with dozens of local and international street artists and created murals to represent the 75 districts of the country. These beautiful works were somehow not very popular with the author­ities that took a dim view of street art appearing overnight on public buildings. Thankfully, with two embassies entering into the spirit of brightening up the city streets, the local authorities have accepted that street art can be beautiful, enlight­ening, and educational.

Festivals celebrating art such as Photo Kathmandu, Kathmandu Triennial, and the International Tattoo Convention, cover more styles that I can fit in this short column. But you get the idea. So much talent, not enough time to enjoy it all! And then there is the music scene in Kathmandu, which must, I feel, wait for another week to write about…

Over two recent weekends Kath­mandu saw its first and fabu­lous cabaret. Featuring dance, music, mime, and one-act plays it prompted me to think about all the wonderful art and cultural events that happen here. I think many people do not realize just how talented the Nepalis are as a nation. With an ancient tra­dition of wood and stone carving, thanka and religious paintings, architecture, bronzes, pottery etc, Nepal, and particularly, Kathmandu Valley, is a place with art and culture in its blood.

It’s no surprise then that there is so much talent among the youth as well. Art, music, drama, to name just a few, are not only vibrant but positively electric. I can say, and frequently do say, I am not an artiste (no talent, sob!). But I am what every artiste needs, the audience. And at that I am extremely experienced and talented!

Having said that, however, it can be so hard to keep up with all the social events happening around town. Maybe I should become a critic of the arts and actu­ally get paid to attend events. Now there’s a thought! I love to attend the theater and was really disappointed when my favorite, and ‘father’ of modern theatre in Nepal, Gurukul, had to give up its premises some years ago.

Meantime, Mandala, Shilpee and a few others are still going and have opened their doors to other groups to use their premises. While most of the theater groups produce in Nepali, there are one or two who do produce in English. But there is something refreshing about the audiences who go along to the Nepali productions.

They are, in general, young and enthusiastic with no pretentious intentions we often see at the the­aters in the West. They are there purely because they enjoy it. My lev­el of understanding varies depend­ing on the difficulty of the subject matter but regardless as to how much information I gain through my ears, the acting is of such a high standard, my eyes provide enough information to keep me engaged!

Sometimes there are stunning performances and theater events, such as ‘Arjuna’s Dilemma’ staged at Patan Museum, a collaboration of actors, musicians, dancers and opera singers from Nepal, US and Europe. Based on a text from the Bhagavad Gita this production was the first opera in Nepal and outdid itself visually and musically.

In the past Gurukul was host to an annual International Theater Festival with theatre groups coming from all around the globe. More local productions I have loved include an interesting adaptation of ‘Swan Lake’, and one where a char­acter zip-lined above the audience in a replica ropeway crossing the Karnali River.

Painting and installation art is another genre populated by very talented artists, and whether it is images of landscapes, portraits, or more contemporary styles such as a huge red rectangle painted onto the buildings of Kirtipur, there are frequent exhibition openings hap­pening around town. One of my favorites has come firmly onto the Kathmandu scene after a bit of a rocky start—street art.

A few years ago Color Kathmandu took to the streets with dozens of local and international street artists and created murals to represent the 75 districts of the country. These beautiful works were somehow not very popular with the author­ities that took a dim view of street art appearing overnight on public buildings. Thankfully, with two embassies entering into the spirit of brightening up the city streets, the local authorities have accepted that street art can be beautiful, enlight­ening, and educational.

Festivals celebrating art such as Photo Kathmandu, Kathmandu Triennial, and the International Tattoo Convention, cover more styles that I can fit in this short column. But you get the idea. So much talent, not enough time to enjoy it all! And then there is the music scene in Kathmandu, which must, I feel, wait for another week to write about…