Papers by Kamal Raj Devkota
Prima Educatione, Nov 22, 2023
Teachers in marginalised communities are known to face numerous challenges that may impact on the... more Teachers in marginalised communities are known to face numerous challenges that may impact on their classroom practices. However, very little is known about their classroom practices in terms of their use of language and technology. Drawing on data collected in an international research project involving teachers and schoolchildren in several marginalised communities in Bangladesh, Nepal, Senegal and Sudan, the paper reports and reflects on the roles of languages and technology in education from the perspectives of teachers. The research data pertaining to teachers was collected through interviews and classroom observations and analysed through the lens of activity theory. Contradictions emerged between official languages used in class and the need to use local languages to support understanding, communication and discussion. Digital tools for teaching and learning were highly valued but scarce, consequently some teachers filled the gap by using their own digital and financial resources. Despite some challenges using English with students, teachers' attitudes towards English were positive due to the perceived value of English for employment, access to information and social status. The research contributes to renewed awareness of marginalization and inequity and to promoting inclusivity. It contributes insights directly from communities that have not been studied from the combined perspective of languages and technology use in education. We discuss the implications of the findings for the improvement of pedagogical practices in marginalised communities.
International Review of Education, Mar 3, 2021
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has triggered serious disruption in economic, social and cultural ... more Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has triggered serious disruption in economic, social and cultural dynamics around the globe. Higher education has also suffered undeniable challenges as a result of the pandemic, with thousands of university students all over the world experiencing displacement, disconnect and disengagement from formal learning. In the Global South, online and distance education programmes tend to be concentrated in urban centres. In Nepal, students from rural areas, low socioeconomic and gendered spaces, and those with low proficiencies in English and technological skills are experiencing inequalities in access to and participation in online and distance education. This article outlines how universities' shift to online teaching and learning modes due to the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced social inequalities in Nepal. For the study presented here, the author collected data through netnographic research methods. These included online interviews with university executives, online focus group discussions (FGDs) with university teachers and students, observation of and participation in online classes and policy conferences and reviews of online documents. The article analyses three overriding mechanisms which are reinforcing social inequalities in higher education: (1) universities' policy trajectories in shifting teaching/learning from face-to-face to online mode; (2) infrastructural limitations challenging effective implementation of online teaching/learning; and (3) a lack of strong pedagogic support for students from disadvantaged and marginalised spaces, including those with low proficiencies in English and technological skills. The author presents a number of tangible strategies for universities to implement in order to mitigate social inequalities. He recommends the adoption of policies and practices that optimise the inclusive use of online and distance education programmes for best effect, both now and in the postpandemic era.
Education Quarterly
This article unfolds our experiences and reflections of field-based oral corpus collection from t... more This article unfolds our experiences and reflections of field-based oral corpus collection from the Nepali language in the business setting applying observation, audio-recording, interview and field notes as qualitative techniques. Understanding our own role as auto ethnographic researchers-as-authors, in this article, we draw a set of fieldwork traits: the simplicity of the fieldworker(s), context-dependence of appropriating research ethics, and understanding fieldwork as a spiral process. Based on our practical experiences, we recognize that the qualitative interview is an inefficacious technique for collecting functional linguistic data. Likewise, preserving the linguistic-cultural identity of the source language in terms of its forms, functions and sense while translating the corpus is challenging. We also recognize some fundamental traits to be followed by an oral corpus collector: relative simultaneity of data collection and analysis, the researcher’s autonomy in selecting the...
Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education
Frontiers in Communication
Disadvantaged young people in low-resource countries are less likely to complete their education ... more Disadvantaged young people in low-resource countries are less likely to complete their education or to progress to higher levels, which means that their upward mobility can be severely constrained. Versatile technologies such as smartphones, when combined with an ability to use the English language, can facilitate access to learning resources, thereby helping to support young people's education where the school facilities and local teaching resources are often insufficient and may reinforce existing inequalities. However, technology access and usage vary, and linguistic or other barriers to effective engagement are multifaceted. To gain a deeper understanding of the role of languages and technologies, our research project collected first-hand accounts of the educational experiences of marginalized young people aged 13–15, their parents and teachers in harder-to-reach urban and rural settings, in four low-income countries in Africa and Asia. The research investigated perspectives...
Education and Development, 2019
School Sector Development Plan (SSDP, 2016-2023) has envisaged the establishment and operation of... more School Sector Development Plan (SSDP, 2016-2023) has envisaged the establishment and operation of ‘model schools’ to demonstrate improved management and teaching-learning therein. One thousand secondary schools representing all provinces and districts are planned to be developed as model schools, and three hundred and five have already been selected for initiating the project in 2017/18. Model School Guideline has been developed in the framework of SSDP; and in accordance with that, the selected schools are provided with certain financial support for building infrastructure, improving classroom delivery and instructional activities, and bringing efficiency in school management. Based on the fieldwork in four sample schools of Nepal, this study has unraveled how these ‘model’ schools have understood, experienced and enacted with English language space (ELS) in the course of model school construction. The analysis of the field data especially derived from school observation, qualitati...
Modern schooling is often expressed as one of the key social dynamics of development and modernis... more Modern schooling is often expressed as one of the key social dynamics of development and modernisation in Nepal. Ideally, school policies and pedagogies are said to embrace inclusion, socialisation and democratisation of young children irrespective of their class, caste, gender and ethnicity. The state’s signatory promises in national/international conventions and platforms often mention social inclusion as the most important expected goal of formal schooling. However, such an understanding is often undermined by persistent educational inequalities and differences which, in turn, underline emergent social, cultural and economic forces that exacerbate social exclusion of many schoolchildren. English Language Teaching (ELT), one of the modern education specificities in the national educultural space, is intricately connected to such inequalities, and is the de facto cause of the enforcing social exclusion of socially, culturally and economically marginalised Dalit children, despite th...
International Review of Education
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has triggered serious disruption in economic, social and cultural ... more Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has triggered serious disruption in economic, social and cultural dynamics around the globe. Higher education has also suffered undeniable challenges as a result of the pandemic, with thousands of university students all over the world experiencing displacement, disconnect and disengagement from formal learning. In the Global South, online and distance education programmes tend to be concentrated in urban centres. In Nepal, students from rural areas, low socioeconomic and gendered spaces, and those with low proficiencies in English and technological skills are experiencing inequalities in access to and participation in online and distance education. This article outlines how universities' shift to online teaching and learning modes due to the COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced social inequalities in Nepal. For the study presented here, the author collected data through netnographic research methods. These included online interviews with university executives, online focus group discussions (FGDs) with university teachers and students, observation of and participation in online classes and policy conferences and reviews of online documents. The article analyses three overriding mechanisms which are reinforcing social inequalities in higher education: (1) universities' policy trajectories in shifting teaching/learning from face-to-face to online mode; (2) infrastructural limitations challenging effective implementation of online teaching/learning; and (3) a lack of strong pedagogic support for students from disadvantaged and marginalised spaces, including those with low proficiencies in English and technological skills. The author presents a number of tangible strategies for universities to implement in order to mitigate social inequalities. He recommends the adoption of policies and practices that optimise the inclusive use of online and distance education programmes for best effect, both now and in the postpandemic era.
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Papers by Kamal Raj Devkota