Innovative Strategies in Higher Education for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia: Nepal

INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES IN

HIGHER EDUCATION

FOR ACCELERATED HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTH ASIA

NEPAL

Creative Commons attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)

© 2015 Asian Development Bank

6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines

Tel +63 2 632 4444; Fax +63 2 636 2444

www.adb.org;openaccess.adb.org

Some rights reserved. Published in 2015.

Printed in the Philippines.

ISBN 978-92-9257-306-5 (Print), 978-92-9257-307-2 (e-ISBN)

Publication Stock No. RPT146956

Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Asian Development Bank.

Innovative strategies in higher education for accelerated human resource development in South Asia: Nepal. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2015.

1. higher education. 2. Nepal. 3. South Asia. I. Asian Development Bank.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent.

ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by ADB in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.

By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term country in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.

This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/. By using the content of this publication, you agree to be bound by the terms of said license as well as the Terms of Use of the ADB Open Access Repository at openaccess.adb.org/termsofuse

This CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. If the material is attributed to another source, please contact the copyright owner or publisher of that source for permission to reproduce it. ADB cannot be held liable for any claims that arise as a result of your use of the material.

Attribution—In acknowledging ADB as the source, please be sure to include all of the following information:

Author. Year of publication. Title of the material. © Asian Development Bank [and/or Publisher]. https://openaccess.adb.org. Available under a CC BY 3.0 IGO license.

Translations—Any translations you create should carry the following disclaimer:

Originally published by the Asian Development Bank in English under the title [title] © [Year of publication] Asian Development Bank. All rights reserved. The quality of this translation and its coherence with the original text is the sole responsibility of the [translator]. The English original of this work is the only official version.

Adaptations—Any adaptations you create should carry the following disclaimer:

This is an adaptation of an original Work © Asian Development Bank [Year]. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of ADB or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not endorse this work or guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use.

Please contact [email protected] or [email protected] if you have questions or comments with respect to content, or if you wish to obtain copyright permission for your intended use that does not fall within these terms, or for permission to use the ADB logo.

Note: In this publication, $ refers to US dollars.

Contents

Tables and Figures

Tables

Figures

Foreword

South Asia’s contributions to the Asian economy and the global labor force are substantial and will continue to grow. The Asian Development Bank’s priority in the region is to complement infrastructure investments with strategic support to human resource development to help people move up the value chain. The objective of the Innovative Strategies for Accelerated Human Resource Development in South Asia (Subproject 11) under the Development Partnership Program for South Asia (RETA 6337) is to support emerging opportunities in priority human resource development through targeted policy dialogue grounded on relevant analytical work on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education.

Financial support from the Government of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—Australian Aid (formerly the Australian Agency for International Development) has helped to prepare six country-level reports on TVET and higher education for Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The reports identify each country’s human resource development priorities, examine issues and constraints, and recommend possible interventions to realize the full potential of their respective labor force. Overall, common issues revolve around equitable access, quality and relevance, and financing. Increasing the number of graduates with relevant skills has been a persistent challenge rooted in systemic quality assurance policies and practices such as the actual provision of market-responsive training and credible assessment and certification. Equitable access does not only depend on availability of funds to provide education and training but equally on efficient use of available resources and effective mobilization of and synergy between public and private institutions in each country.

South Asia’s huge opportunities arising from demographic dividend could be harnessed fully only if it is able to skill a large number of new entrants to the labor market every year and upskill the expanding labor force that is still undereducated and inadequately trained compared with their counterparts in other regions. South Asia must capitalize on innovations, knowledge, and skills anchored on high-quality TVET and higher education. Investments in high-quality TVET and selectively in higher education will be crucial for South Asian countries to transition from low-skilled labor to higher productivity and globally competitive labor. There are ample reasons to be optimistic since all countries in South Asia consider investments in human capital development a critical pillar of overall sustainable development.

Hun Kim

Director General

South Asia Department, ADB

Preface

The reports herein provide in-depth analyses of the state of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and higher education in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Each country has two reports covering TVET and higher education which were presented in the three country-level workshops during the first week of December 2012: Sri Lanka (1 December), Nepal (3 December), and Bangladesh (5 December). Participants from government, the private sector, academe, and development partners discussed and validated the findings, and supported the recommendations as well as identified additional next steps.

In TVET, issues range from insufficient teachers and trainers in Bangladesh to lack of quality monitoring system in Nepal, and to inadequate industry participation in Sri Lanka. Among the common issues identified are weak quality assurance mechanisms, low employment rate of graduates, lack of information about demand (leading to a mismatch between training and available jobs), expensive and long-term training that excludes the poor and marginalized, weak institutional arrangements, and inadequate provision of high-quality TVET to manage and scale up training programs.

Higher education is equally affected by various constraints ranging from lack of accountability for performance among institutions in Bangladesh to high politicization in Nepal, and to weak quality assurance mechanisms in Sri Lanka. Common issues identified are regional disparities in access, high cost in private higher education institutions, and poor quality and relevance as well as lack of emphasis on courses that promote entrepreneurship.

Key recommendations of the reports include implementation of a national quality assurance system, establishing a reliable skills data and labor market information system, effective financing schemes, encouraging public–private partnerships, and international benchmarking and mutual recognition for global competitiveness. In TVET, the key priorities are strengthening private training provision with clearly identified and mandated apex agency to effectively coordinate and scale up training programs, development of national competency standards, and building the capacity of TVET institutions. In higher education, the key priorities are developing research capacity, improved targeting of financial assistance to students, adopting formula funding in allocating public funding to universities, promoting accountability and autonomy among higher education institutions, and depoliticization of the higher education system.

The reports were prepared by a group of national consultants: