The In the history of Nepal’s formal education sector, the Government of Nepal has first introduced Social Studies and Life Skill Education curriculum for grade eleven and twelve in 2020. At the beginning, as there were debates about when to begin implementing the curriculum that led to filing a petition at the Supreme Court, it created some confusion among stakeholders, especially at the school level – whether to use old textbook or the new one. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition on 12 January 2021 (The Rising Nepal, 2021), clearing the road for its implementation. In this context, it is worthwhile to undertake a research on contents and relevancy of the curriculum in the Nepali context. Hence, this research asks: What are the contents relating life skills in the Life Skills Education curriculum? What is the relevancy of the curriculum in the context of Nepal and how? What are the areas of improvement that could be considered for its reform in the future? and how?

This research will adopt qualitative content analysis method of studying Social Studies and Life Skills Education curriculum, identifying contents relating Life Skills Education as it is and then developing consistent categories for further analyses and discussions. In this way, this research will adopt data driven approach for generating key concepts and categories (Schreier 2012, 24). The contents will be critically studied from the perspective of key components of Life Skills Education in light of ten core life skills as laid down by WHO (Sharma, 2012). Based on the findings of content analysis, a case study of a school of Kailali district will be undertaken to understand and contextualize what is going on at the frontline, what aspects need to be reformed and how, what are the challenges, what are its limitations, etc.? The findings of this study will add onto the policy and process of implementing a new curriculum in Nepal’s education sector.

Keywords: Life Skill Education, Curriculum, Nepal

References

Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis in practice. SAGE.

Sharma, Vanita. (2012). Life skills education. International Journal of Education Methodology, 1(3), 50-54. The Rising Nepal. (2021, January 12). SC order for new curriculum of grade 11 and 12. Available at https://risingnepaldaily.com/main-news/sc-order-for-new-curriculum-of-grade-11-12