Any improvement in the education and development activities in Nepal must help improve the economy (in terms of investment, tourism, and even simple daily economic activity).
As for longer-term improvements in the economy, both development reform and education reform will be necessary. Education reform (ensuring basic education for all children and making secondary education possible for those who perform well in basic education) will vastly improve the economic potential of the average person and will make it possible for young people to consider jobs.
My friend, Dr. Khagendra Thapa, a distinguished professor at Ferris State University said to me “Land reform (real land reform – not collectivization) would help break-up the agricultural production system. This would be a struggle and would also require small land-holders to organize into cooperatives to increase their negotiating power in terms of the sale of crops. The Philippines has been struggling to implement meaningful land reform for decades!”
An Economy Based On Tourism and Subsistence Agriculture Cannot Advance
He further added “As a practical matter, the economy probably cannot advance if it is based primarily on tourism and subsistence agriculture. So, an effort to introduce effective cash cropping to independent small land holders would be required, too. The economic recovery will depend on improved development activities.”
“For improvement in the economy, we need to establish trade schools where people are taught about electrical work, plumbing, brick laying, cosmetics, basic health care programs. We must initiate an educational campaign and challenge every literate person to teach. It will really help to solidify economic development in future.”
“We must encourage the establishment of industries which enable us to be not only self sufficient in consumer goods but we could also export them. We need to encourage production of non perishable fruits and vegetables which can be exported to other countries. Promote electrification by encouraging the establishment of small hydroelectric pants and solar power.”
Nepal Has A Small Economic Base
If we lose monetarily daily, export industries are also losing competitiveness and image. If we accumulate the loss of all the industries, the amount would cross millions. No doubt, general consumption gets hurt when normal functioning of the economy is disturbed. If we have a comparatively small economic base, a host of impediments exist in business activities. It is the local partners of joint venture companies who are hit hardest by such encumbrances.
Each development activity is sufficiently different that what works well in one system will not do so in another system. To move up the ladder economically, we would have to import technology, including technical knowledge, but the country has little to offer in exchange for it, just tourism and some articles requiring cheap, unskilled or semiskilled labor, which do not buy very much.
A cash flow analysis of the economy might be a start to determine whether or not we will be able to move up the economic ladder or must remain on the lower rungs.
