Incompetent NGOs in Education

In the wake of the 2030 agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also called global goals, the education sector has continued to remain a hotcake in the development debate of the contemporary globe. Given that, the actual fulfillment of one of the 17 global goals needs other ones to be fulfilled properly; educational goals are not only limited to goal number 4. This adds to the product selling of established (International) NGOs, more heavily, in the forefronts of their operation – the developing world.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) projects of UNESCO can be regarded as yet another rhetoric that has been parallel with the development goals of UNDP (from MDGs to SDGs, and maybe further, if the hypothetical doom of 2030 spares humankind). While educational approaches have been regarded as key instruments for achieving a global utopia, educational institutions in the global South have been failing to consolidate the generation, that has the potential synergy. The danger of strong (and growing) polarisation between privileged- and marginalized youth has always been overlooked because of the glossy fronts of perpetual collaboration between the privileged class and International NGOs.

The game has been straightforward for International NGOs. They are not required to cover the overwhelming population, for their products to sell. What they need is comfort in producing successful reports with some super-achieved outcomes. For instance, not many executive figures of such INGOs have deep concerns over deepening polarisation among Nepalese youth. Poor, mostly rural, and disadvantaged in terms of quality and quantity of essential services have been at an extreme distance (in terms of collaboration) from the mostly urban youth from affluent families.

Urban schools, affluent parents, and ease of communication in the English language are such characteristics of such privileged youth, that help to maintain the quality of glossy productions of successful (I)NGOs’ projects in youth – English language, urban environment, art, education, or whatsoever.

Deep ecologists, or let’s say critical theorists might certainly be against such bubbles of symbiosis between privileged Southern recipients and ignorant resellers of Northern savior’s (so-called) objectives. It is also convenient that the mostly Westernizing, urban youth are easy to be brainwashed with Western ideals and standards; so that the productions in projects can be compatible with the demand of project owners with some head offices located across the Atlantic or the Mediterranean. Otherwise, the Other (yes, Edward Said’s ‘Other’) group could already pose opposition right from the ideological loci. A class in the UK could be having trouble co-learn ‘Black History Month’ in October without understanding the situation of rural Nepal where almost all students could be busy harvesting plantations for the year. The teachers could not be easy to be in touch when needed. Difficulty in communicating in English should be another con.

While writing this, I must agree that mostly urban, private schools of Nepal have been regarded as factories to produce raw materials for supplying semi-skilled and skilled manpower to the Western world. Since, the Western world has been relatively viewed as superior, civilized, and distant; the school community of public schools (and their unlikely collaborators) could have internalized that their schooling efforts could not be compatible with Western education projects to be launched. Such a mindset is enough to maintain the divide between these groups of young students.

More alarming is that nothing has been attempted to consolidate the youth in the same country; crossing the divide of urban-rural, affluent-poor, marginalised-advantaged, failing school-successful school; for moving together towards the frontiers of sustainability fronts. What has been done, for international NGOs, is that they can easily get the contents for their glossy brochures. harnessing from bits of so-called partnerships with the relatively privileged subjects of the much wider educational landscape that has been perpetually waiting for institutional transformation.