First Steps
In Japan, The First National Plan of Education was issued in 1872. The purposes of education were declared in the National Plan of Education by the Government of Japan:
1. The purpose of the new education is to develop within each student the ability to advance in life.
2. To achieve this, the new curriculum must avoid the feudal teachings of the past that proved meaningless, to be replaced with new courses that will enable the individual to advance in life with the technological knowledge according to the chosen field of endeavor.
3. In contrast to the old schools, each serving a particular social class, all students should attend school regardless of social background so that no family has an uneducated member.
4. Since the local community will primarily benefit from the school, it must be financed by the local community.
Meanwhile, Nepal started modernizing education almost twenty years before Japan. Jung Bahadur Rana, impressed by the innovations and progress of Britain, decided to establish Durbar High School in 1854. Durbar High School was the introduction of modern education in Nepal.
Durbar High School (1930s)
The thing to be noted was there was no comprehensive education policy put forward in Nepal. Durbar High School was a school reserved for the Rana Family, who were the rulers of the country. The purpose of the school was explicitly to teach the sons of Rana Family get English Education because Jung Bahadur Rana on his visit to Britain felt embarrassed about his lack of knowledge of English.
The aftermath of Both Approaches
In Nepal, By the turn of the century in 1901, Dev Shumsher became the first Prime Minister to allow students from families other than the Rana Family to study at Durbar High School. He was the first to propose a National Education Policy ironically inspired by the reformations in Japan.
Dev Shumsher was prime minister of Nepal for 114 days, his government was overtaken by a coup d’état by his own brother, and all his policy changes were reversed. Nepal had to wait a century from the establishment of Durbar High School in 1951 to get a universal education policy.
By 1901, Education Policy in Japan had gone through four revisions where a system of Western Science and Eastern Morality was implemented. The enrollment in elementary education was 90% in Japan for school-age children. Japan was well on its way to becoming one of the strongest powers in the world. Teeming with newly established railways, and the wave of industrialization.
By 1894-95, Japan had renegotiated all the unequal treaties with the Western countries on the back of their industrializing economy and military power.
By 1904, Japan became the first Asian country in modern history to defeat a major European power by defeating the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan had restored her honor and gained unprecedented respect.
Conclusion
Literacy rate of Japan today is 99%, virtually 100%. It is the third biggest economy in the world and admired around the world for its achievements in science and technology. The success of Japan in so small part was built by a universal policy of education which was built to compete at the world stage.
Our case is not that Nepal would have achieved similar success in quantity as Japan as in the last 150 years if the education policy had been in place. But Nepal would have surely been better off than what it is today.
History rewards nations which learn and plan well for the future.
References:
- https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/commodore-perry-and-the-opening-of-japan
- https://kathmandupost.com/national/2019/08/13/original-copies-of-sugauli-treaty-and-nepal-india-friendship-treaty-are-both-missing
- Benjamin Duke – The History of Modern Japanese Education_ Constructing the National School System
- https://www.history.com/topics/asian-history/russo-japanese-war
- https://www.spotlightnepal.com/2020/08/24/dev-sumsher-rana-against-slavery/
- https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/literacy-rate-by-country
Comment (1)
admin
says July 23, 2023 at 3:30 pmWow I did not know this