An August 20, 2026, article in The Kathmandu Post, “Time to introduce charter schools in Nepal?” claims that “After decades of politicisation and neglect, Nepal’s public education system needs radical systemic and structural reforms.”
Enter privately-operated charter schools, which are performance-based contracts between the government and unelected private persons.
This narrative is the typical worn-out narrative used to introduce school privatization schemes at home and abroad. Today, charter schools, or schools that mimic charter schools, exist in Canada, the U.K., Sweden, New Zealand, and several other countries. They all follow similar patterns.
As the neoliberal narrative typically goes, first we are told that there is a “crisis” in education and that national governments have been failing and can’t resolve education problems. Then, with a huge leap of faith, we are told that “school-choice” schemes like charter schools, which bring new structures and governance forms, will solve or ameliorate decades of government failure in education.
Of course, this ignores the 50 problems engendered by privately-operated charter schools themselves. Even with perfunctory caveats like “charter schools won’t solve all problems,” the public is pressured to move forward with them nonetheless. It is as if no other vision for improving education is permitted. Charter schools are presented as a foregone conclusion, and everyone is pressured to ignore the evidence showing many problems with “free market” education.
“Time to introduce charter schools in Nepal?” admits that, “Perhaps a radical systemic restructuring will be a worthy experiment, although we have to be wary of commercial interests, especially in the delivery of public services. There is already widespread discontent regarding a lack of proper regulation of profit-seeking private schools.” Yet, “bold, radical steps” are encouraged to bring about a “major overhaul” of education in Nepal.
These are flimsy and self-serving justifications to privatize and marketize education. They are not credible or meaningful. School privatization has not solved educational problems anywhere. School privatization is mainly a way to wreck public education while enriching a handful of people under the veneer of high ideals. Neoliberal narratives about “failure” and the way forward are irresponsible and should be rejected. Only the people themselves through their own actions and analyses can chart a bright future for education.