While investment in education is an investment in the country's future, the problem is that few Nepali students are returning home

In the last one decade, there has been an exodus of Nepali students to universities abroad year after year to pursue their bachelor's and master's degrees.

Since 2011, there has been a seven-fold increase in the number of students travelling abroad for higher education, reaching more than 63,000 in 2018-19.

Nepal now ranks among the top fielders of foreign students to institutes of higher education in Australia, Japan, America and Europe, not to talk about the tens of thousands of students who join colleges in India but do not require a no-objection letter from the Ministry of Education. However, the outbreak of the coronavirus at the beginning of 2020 put a brake on student admissions in foreign colleges, after a series of strict lockdowns stopped all movement of people.

But a mass vaccination drive in the developed world and a relaxation of visa rules in recent months have allowed colleges and universities to start enrolling foreign students. As a result, there has been a 36 per cent increase in Nepali students' enrollment in foreign universities since 2020.

Outside India, Nepali students mostly prefer English-speaking countries, namely Australia, Cyprus, the United States and the United Kingdom, although you are just as likely to find them in large numbers in China, Korea, Japan, Germany, Russia and East European countries. Although some students manage to study on partial or full scholarships, most of them pay for their education, which, undoubtedly, is very expensive because universities charge foreign students more than their own citizens. Nepal spent more than Rs 40 billion on students who went abroad to study in 2018-19, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year. Students are going abroad in ever increasing droves largely to join a prestigious university or under peer pressure or simply due to lack of quality higher education in the country, especially in the non-technical fields. Other reasons are that they can work part-time and find job opportunities after graduation. The most popular fields of study for Nepali students are medicine, nursing, engineering, information technology and business studies.

While investment in education is an investment in the country's future, the problem with Nepali students is that few of them are returning to Nepal, preferring to work in the developed world after graduation and eventually settle there. This is understandable given the difficulty of finding work in the country, where political connections might be necessary to bag a post. Also the low salary does not help recoup the huge investment made on one's education. In such a scenario, Nepal suffers from a heavy brain drain, where the parents spend all of their hard earned money on the education of their children to prepare the best human resource eventually for the developed world. Nepal could retain both students and foreign exchange from flowing out if the quality of education in our colleges and universities were to improve. Unfortunately, this will not happen unless student politics and political interference in the educational institutes time and again are put to an end. When the political parties will finally see reason is the question.

Focus on research

Given the varied topography and suitable climatic condition for all types of plants, herbs and shrubs to grow, Nepal has huge potential for the growth of Ayurvedic medicine, which has been in practice in the South Asian region since time immemorial. But we have not been able to reap benefits from the herbs that have medicinal properties. The government has set up an Ayurveda Campus and Teaching Hospital at TU along with a research centre. However, youths are attracted towards allopathic medicine.

In order to make Ayurvedic medicine and its ageold treatment methods more popular and acceptable, we need to make huge investment in research by applying modern technology. Yarshagumba, a unique caterpillar-fungus, for example, also known as Himalayan Viagra, is said to contain chemical properties that can help cure various types of cancer, according to researchers at Oxford University. Our universities and research centres should also focus on research so that the outcome can benefit entire humanity. Marking Dhanwantari Day makes no sense unless our related institutions devout their time and resources in innovation and modernisation of Ayurvedic medicine.


A version of this article appears in the print on November 3, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.