| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 08:58 AM
Fulbright Nepalis
[From The Nepali Times]
For more than 50 years, Nepali students have benefited from the worlds most successful educational exchange.
Thursday (June 12, 2003) was Fulbright Day, and some of the 300 or so Nepalis who have studied in the United States under the Fulbright Program gathered in Kathmandu for an annual get-together.
There certainly isnt anything unique about Nepali students leaving home for a Western education anymore. More than 1,500 Nepalis went to the United States last year alone, a quarter of them to pursue post-graduate degrees. While some Nepali parents can afford to foot the bill, most students still rely on grants and scholarships. Among the latter, the Fulbright Scholarship is perhaps the most contested and coveted.
This year, there were more than 300 aspirants for the Nepal-wide selection of five candidates for the 2004 Fulbrighters. The prestige attached to being a Fulbright scholar is partially due to a rigorous selection processonly the cream of the crop gets through.
In 51 countries, including Nepal, there are binational commissions to administer the program. It began with a simple idea, but has grown to allow an untold amount of shared knowledge, cross fertilisation and global networking, says Michael Gill, head of the Fulbright Commission, Nepal. In June 1961, the Commission for Educational Exchange between the United States and Nepal (USEF-Nepal) was formally established, but Nepali students and scholars had gone to the United States as Fulbright scholars even before that.
In 1952, Ram Chandra Malhotra and Yog Prasad Upadhaya became the first Nepali Fulbrighters when they were selected to study public administration. Since then, some 260 students, 47 post-doctorate scholars and 46 travel grantees have been to the US under Fulbright auspices to study, teach and to conduct research. In a reverse flow, 122 American students and 133 senior scholars have come to Nepal.
Many Nepali Fulbrighters joined the civil service and rose up the ranks but very few got into politics. Former minister and RPP leader, Prakash Chandra Lohani, a 1962 Fulbrighter, who is the new finance minister in the Surya Bahadur Thapa cabinet is one of the few. It helped me broaden my perspectivethe experience helped me become a better person and a better professional, Lohani told us.
Fulbrighters are required to return to Nepal and work in their field for at least two years. But Dilli Devi Shakya, the president of Fulbright Alumni Association of Nepal (FAAN) is concerned with the rising numbers who stay on in the US, especially those who are studying technical subjects.
Shakya is a supervisor to research students at Tribhuban Universitys Department of Botany. She is also the first woman to head the government funded Research Centre for Applied Science and Technology (RECAST).
The Fulbright experience teaches you how best to exploit what is at your disposal, the 1990 Fulbrighter adds.
Nepali scholars are diversifying in their academic fields of interest under the Fulbright program. The younger generation has opted for creative writing, fine arts and media studiesa departure from the traditionally popular areas like economics, administration and the sciences. These changes have also been reflected within the American education system and their teaching values.
Former head of the National Planning Commission, Mohan Man Sainju, remembers how difficult his first two semesters were as a Fulbright scholar at the University of North Carolina in 1969. I struggled against the rigidity of science. I wanted to study development not as an isolated economic issue but also in light of its social, political and anthropological connections, Sainju recalls. At least in his case, the hard work seems to have paid off.
USEF-Nepal says the quality of applicants has dipped and crested with poltical and socio-economic changes in the last 50 years. The quality of early scholars were good because most of them had Masters degrees from universities in India that followed the British-style education system. In the 1970s education suffered a serious setback, but the tide turned for Nepali applicants, especially in the 1990s.
Until then most scholars held government jobs, but today people working in the private sector, international organisations and independent scholars are coming to the fore. We would like our selection to be more representational of the diversity in the Nepali population, says Gill, who himself was a Peace Corps volunteer here in the 1970s and speaks fluent Nepali. We are doing better than before, but we still dont get as many dalit and janjati scholars as we would like.
The Fulbright Program was conceived by late US senator J William Fulbright to promote mutual understanding through education between the US and other countries. The US Congress formally established the program in 1946. An international policy-level governing body, appointed by the US President and consisting of 12 members drawn from academic, cultural and public life, was set up.
The Fulbright Program is the largest exchange of students and scholars in history. Nearly 25,000 individuals have lived, studied, taught and learned in the US and 140 other countries. Along with Peace Corps, the Fulbright Program is hailed as the most successful US government undertaking for knowledge sharing. At present it has mutual exchanges with more than 120 countries.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 09:14 AM
ashu ji also full brighter??
it offers fellowships only to pursue masters degree these days....
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| ashu |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 09:25 AM
No, I am NOT a Fullbrighter.
Not being that bright, I remain only a half-brighter :-)
But a number of good friends -- two, this year in 2003 alone -- have won this fellowship.
I posted that article to urge Nepali Fullbrighters out there in the US of A to share their experiences with the Sajha community.
Tetti ho.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 11:52 AM
Ashu, indeed you deserve more than full, but i wonder if u didn't apply for it or they didn't select you or u looking for better scholarships from banks like WB, etc.
Most fullbrighters are into technical disciplines and look complacent with his/her own job, but only very few in legislative or policy making bodies where nepal direly needs them.
In their annual get together what they do? just end up with CHIYA PAN, Hi Hello, I m this and that, where have u been for so many years, la fon garnus na mero cell yo ho, so so....???? ...eheheh... It might be a better idea when the get together takes some form of annual development conference with some theme for the year with 8-10 invited papers....Fulbrighters may shade some light on it. Since I m too not a brighter, I am not allowed to talk in the forum except chilling here in this kurakani land...ehehe
just a thought
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 05:05 PM
We would like our selection to be more representational of the diversity in the Nepali population, says Gill...
Most certainly !! If anything, Nepal is crying out for inclusiveness.
Tks Ashu for the post, as usual - you do have a wide repertoire.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 07:07 PM
>>>Ashu, indeed you deserve more than full, but i wonder if u didn't apply for it or they didn't select you or u looking for better scholarships from banks like WB, etc."
Bhunte,
For the next two years, I am fully committed to do what I have been enjoyably
doing in Nepal right now.
There are a number of professonal and personal projects that I am involved in,
and would like to complete them, so to speak, before I can even think about
leaving Nepal for a long period of time before the summer of 2005. And that
suits me just fine.
Meantime, I am happy that I have been able to able to urge/encourage/support/cajole and assist Nepali friends to apply for Fulbright fellowships and other scholarship opportunities, and it's wonderful to celebrate friends' various successes, even if, in
the long-run of life, a teeny-weeny minority among them will, as is the matirix of the world we live in, betray me, and that's life. :-)
Village Voice, another Fulbrigter, so, when are we going to meet for chiya-siya in KTM?
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Boke |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 07:39 PM
I sometimes hear about people who come to America on Fulbright or other scholarships arranged through the government who do not return back to Nepal as they are obligated to. Well, are they guilty of national betrayal or do they have the right, human right, to persue happiness as they so find? What are your thoughts?
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| VillageVoice |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 08:07 PM
Ashu, pretty soon.
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| ruck |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 08:48 PM
Bokeji, I fully agree with you on this.
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| Bhunte |
Posted
on 22-Jun-03 08:56 PM
earlier there used to be lots of such bokas from govt, but no longer now...
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| ashu |
Posted
on 23-Jun-03 08:36 PM
>>>sometimes hear about people who come to America on Fulbright or other scholarships arranged through the government who do not return back to Nepal as they are obligated to. <<<<
Yes, they have the obligations to return, but such obligations cannot be and are not legally/rigidly translated into enforceable actions. Ke garne?
Still, Kathmandu does have its share of Nepali Fulbrighters, doing what they can in
their various disciplines.
Personally, I happen to think that Fulbrighters should be allowed to work in the US for two years after the completion of their degrees so that when they come back to Nepal, they come back with job skills, professional networks they can tap on, ideas about how to leverage their talents or themselves or for their employers, better understanding of what workplaces should be like and other skills . . .. all of which add more value to
Nepal ko chautarfi bikas than pure cognitive abilities that US universities stress on.
Just my thought -- after informally observing that those who have worked in the US and other countries tend to "add more value" to whatever they do in Nepal than those who just picked up degrees in the US.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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