Democracy, decentralization, and public school governance in nepal

This paper deals with public school governance in terms of policies and practices of the federal democratic republic in Nepal. The preamble and articles of the new constitution are guided through national democratic values and norms. They assume the overall system, including education, would be democratically run and governed by the values of democracy and decentralization. This paper raises a few questions on the current process of democracy, decentralization, and governance concerning the education system at the school level. The fundamental question is whether the public schools are governed democratically, in a decentralized way through participatory democracy at the local level as assumed in the constitution. To look for the answer to these questions, some relevant policy documents will be analyzed. In addition, some representative sample public schools within Kathmandu valley will be purposively selected. Students' public school governance policies and practices will be analyzed based on the documents/records available from the selected schools and some in-depth interviews with teachers, school management committee members, and parent-teacher association. The analysis will focus on the assessment of policies of public school governance and their procedures at the local level from the perspective of democracy, decentralization, and good governance. Finally, this research will identify the gaps between policy and practice regarding public governance from democracy and decentralization.