Outdated curriculum is often a cause for concern in Nepal’s tertiary education sector. Journalism education is not an exception.

While it has been four decades since journalism education was introduced in Nepal, the article reports there have been widespread complaints from the media industry that universities do not produce graduates with the necessary skills required to work as journalists.

Apart from an outdated curriculum, other issues that the article identifies as issues in journalism education in Nepal are a lack of quality control and monitoring mechanisms, weak linkage between the universities and media houses, an absence of practical education, poor infrastructure and lack of investment in technology.

As expected, this has led to a situation where fresh graduates are not market-ready and employers need to invest a lot of time and effort into preparing quality journalists.

It is in this context that the Journalism Curriculum for Nepali Universities published by the Kathmandu office of UNESCO and Development Society Nepal could be an important guide for universities to reform their journalism education curriculum. The book which has been produced by experts in journalism education discusses all of the issues mentioned above and goes a step further by providing customised suggestions for various Nepalese Universities.

It is yet to be seen whether universities will be able to make use of this resource to reform their journalism education. Meanwhile, the frustration is palpable especially among progressive private education providers who want to provide better education but are held back by an outdated curriculum. A lack of legislation to provide a way for education providers to become autonomous bodies, implies that many in the private sector would be looking for foreign affiliations and partners to improve their offer to students and provide quality education in journalism as well as other fields.

Links to the original news have been provided below for further reference.

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