Contents

1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................... 426

2 National Progress Through Education.............................................................................................

3 Political Context............................................................................................................................. 429

4 TheMeaningofEducation................................................................................................................ 432

5 “The Epoch of Education”: For the Country’s Development.......................................................... 435

6 Conclusion: “To Serve the Nation”................................................................................................ 438

References............................................................................................................................................ 439

Abstract

This chapter considers what political violence means for young people’s pros­pects in Nepal. It examines the meanings young Nepalis give to their education as they struggle to structure their lives amid a grim employment environment exacerbated by civil strife and political upheaval. The level of precarity in their lives may not differ much from what their parents have experienced, but they make sense of their possibilities differently. These young people see themselves as capable of moving beyond the local sphere of agricultural work and wage labor to pursue entrepreneurial and professional paths both in Nepal and abroad. Education has imbued them with the confidence to change their own lives and communities for the better.

Keywords

All-party mechanisms (APMs) • Constituent assembly • Drug cultivation • Eco­nomic liberalization • Educational attainment • Educational distinction • Gender discrimination • Geopolitics • Inequalities • Investment families • Labor migra­tion • Literacy rate • Macro-politics • Madhesi movement • Maoist civil war •

A. Snellinger (*)

University of Washington, The Jackson School for International Studies, Seattle, WA, USA e-mail: amandala@gmail.com

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017

C. Harker et al. (eds.), Conflict, Violence and Peace, Geographies of Children and

Young People 11, DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-038-4_30

Maoists and political parties • Micro-politics • Moral guidance • National pro­gress • National youth policy (NYP) • Nepal’s postwar transition • People’s movement 2 • People’s movement and political instability • Political instability • Post-conflict settings • Social mobility • Social progress • Social reform • United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN)

1