Innovate or perish

Nepali universities are struggling to attract students. The news from KU is still welcome.

If there is one pivotal concern among our academicians today, it is the mass exodus of students abroad, thereby fast emptying Nepali colleges and universities. This is a valid concern. If a big portion of our university-level student population leaves the country, teachers will have to speak to empty rooms, the universities will run out of resources, and the country will fail to reap the demographic dividend. This realisation seems to have finally dawned on Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, too, as he is nowadays often heard speaking about the desperate need to keep the students in the country. His efforts to appoint a ‘worthy’ vice-chancellor at Tribhuvan University seem to have risen from the same realisation, or at least to persuade the students of higher education to stay put in the country. Whether he succeeds in appointing someone meritorious to lead the troubled university is for us to wait and see.