UNESCO Chair Nepal welcomes international team!

In October, UNESCO Chair colleagues in Nepal welcomed a team from UEA, Bahir Dar University Ethiopia and the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines: Anna Robinson-Pant, Sheila Aikman, PhD students Chris Millora and Burcu Evren, Ulrike Hanemann, Turuwark Warkineh and Gina Lontoc. Professor Mahesh Parajuli (UNESCO Chair Nepal Coordinator) hosted the UNESCO Chair annual review group meeting at Kathmandu University, with Skype contributions from colleagues in the UK and UNESCO.

On 5 October, the team organised a successful one-day literacy workshop for policy makers and practitioners in Nepal (funded by UNESCO Nepal and hosted by Kathmandu University). This included presentations by international participants, Turuwark Warkineh, UNESCO Chair coordinator with our partner university in Ethiopia, and Naeim Malek (by Skype from Afghanistan). The workshop concluded with a stimulating ‘world café’ event, facilitating discussions through quick fire presentations by PhD students from UEA and Kathmandu University.

Later in the week, Dr. Sushan Acharya, UNESCO Chair TU/CERID, organised for the team to share their experiences in adult literacy and lifelong learning from around the world with members of the High Level National Education Commission of Nepal on Tuesday at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Singh Durbar, Kathmandu.

The focus of our visit was the international conference co-hosted by Kathmandu University and the UEA UNESCO Chair in Dhulikel on ‘Transformative Education Research and Sustainable Development’, organised by Professor Bal Chandra Luitel. The team gave presentations on their research, including a group of papers on indigenous women and adult learning. Anna Robinson-Pant gave a keynote presentation on ‘’Context-responsive wisdom and knowledge: moving beyond the immediately observable’. In the concluding plenary session, Turuwark Warkineh gave a moving account of her first experiences of interacting with the academic community here, observing that there may be more similarities than differences between Ethiopia and Nepal.