Hardship: Education in third world countries

As said by Dorothy Parker “Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye” same goes to engineering. Through all the chaos of this world, an engineer’s eye pin points what’s necessary more than what’s fascinating. Mostly considered as the working arm of science, engineers are the doers more so problem solvers. Chain is as strong as its weakest link, so just new ideas never transcend to the public and our daily life, engineers transform ideas into something useful.

Having said all that, Nepal seems to differ. Being the retrospect of this advanced world, Nepal has been lacking far behind the leading edge of development and innovation. It seems as if Nepal doesn’t deserve great minds and they are going in vain or find opportunity elsewhere. Engineering is considered one of the most creative fields but to our misery it has just been translated to a simple 4 years of course with 8 board exams, more than 20 assessments and countless tests. Paradox is the doers are now limited to filling papers in a specified time. We can’t deny the fact that the exam system surely gives us an estimate of a hardworking and diligent student but is it enough to consider a person creative or practical in the topic studied?
This thought has been quite well understood and projects and research papers are being emphasized in many countries. Let’s focus on the reason, why? The answer lies in the very topic. Who are engineers? They are the implementers of ideas. In real world when they are supposed to perform, remembering a certain formula by heart will be the least of their problems. We can always get ways to find data get formulae in the workspace but what difficulties come by is the way to do it, how to start? These are the challenges for an engineers all around the world but is this what an engineering student learns during his/her time in the college? NO. Being an engineering student myself, I know the fact that it’s all about merit in the college everywhere. We must be approaching the learning to be more related to visualization of ideas rather than thinking of them as alphabets in a piece of paper. Though the written exam is pretty good estimation, it is not bullet-proof of-course.
Education as a whole in Nepal is quite centered on merits and exams. No research facilities worth mentioning can be seen around Nepal which provide easy access to students as a result of which only a handful of them can have such opportunity. People may argue that where there is a will there is a way but not all student can have these opportunity and they each might have a good reason why. So it is always good and the nation’s highest priority to provide necessary infrastructures to flourish the high skill manpower in the country. All the other aspects aside, all of us must agree that manpower and education is the first step of development. Heaps of money makes no sense until there is a brain to use it. So in this era of speedy development our country must be focused on education and provision enough to bind our skilled manpower in the country itself through proper education as most of us usually brain drain as early as bachelor level and there is no returning back with that level of exposure in opportunity and that is what a nation must respect. Talks can go on for hours but a skilled manpower always seeks places that truly admire their work and where their sweat truly gets meaning. This conscience can help the government in formulation for better visions towards stopping brain drain.
As our country is progressing towards development we must be very cautious about the government’s moves and it’s our duty towards the country to find the resourceful opportunity through all this chaos to create a win-win situation for ourselves and our country. And government should be more willing for a change.