Monday - Dec 1: Rabi Karmacharya on Transforming Basic Education in Nepal

[Shailesh Gongal]

Apology for the super short notice but please do try to make it if you can!! Also bring along anyone who cares about education in Nepal or that we might have missed.

Boston Chhalphal

Where words matter!

Title:           Transforming Basic Education in Nepal

Speaker:     Rabi Karmacharya, Founder and Executive Director, OLE Nepal

Date:           December 1, 2014; MONDAY

Time:           7-9 PM

Location:     Belfer Center, Hauser Conference Room BL4 (Belfer Lobby Room 4)

                    79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138

Map:            http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/about/location.html

Synopsis:

Ensuring quality basic education is one of the biggest challenges that emerging nations face as they strive to build the human capital required to fuel growth and development. Although Nepal has been successful in the quantitative aspects of school education, student learning outcomes have been well below the targets specified by the curriculum. Despite a high net enrollment rate in the primary grades, student attendance rate is low, and more almost a third do not complete primary level. Our education system needs radical transformation if we are serious about providing a basic education that prepares our students to prosper in today’s global knowledge-based economy, and help build a strong nation.

Recent technological advancements have opened many doors to improve learning. The rapid proliferation of ICT has changed the way we access and use information. We have to capture the unique opportunity that technology offers in transforming education, and introduce a learning platform that engages students and makes them better thinkers and problem solvers.

Brief Bio:

Rabi Karmacharya is the Executive Director of the Open Learning Exchange Nepal, a non-profit that he founded in 2007 with the aim to improve education quality and access in rural parts of the country by employing technological innovations. 

Rabi previously worked in Silicon Valley as a design engineer before deciding to return to Nepal in 2000 to help build the nation struggling with a nascent democracy. He started a software company, HimalayanTechies, to tap into the growing outsourcing market and to help reduce the massive brain-drain of the young, skilled workforce. After establishing the company and leading it for seven years, he pursued other interests to build human resources in the country through education before initiating OLEN. Born and raised in Kathmandu, he went to Canada and the US for higher studies after completing high school in Nepal. He received his BSc and MEng degrees in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).