Highlights
Faculty of Education (FOE) was established as College of Education in 1956, which was before the establishment of its mother institution, Tribhuvan University (TU) in 1959. FOE was established to institutionalize teacher education programmes in Nepal. It is the largest faculty of TU in terms of the number of students and campuses affiliated with TU. With 26 constituent campuses and 544 affiliated colleges running the teacher education programme throughout the country, FOE has the biggest network of teacher education in the country. Since its establishment, FoE has been contributing to the nation by producing and supplying human resources needed for schools and educational sectors in the country. It has offered diverse educational programmes in a wider range of subject areas including social studies, science and information and communication technology (ICT) education.
FOE currently offers educational programmes in Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.), Master of Education (M.Ed.), Master of Social Studies Education (MSSEd), Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in education. The Bachelor’s and master’s programmes are blended with academic contents and professional courses. However, these programmes have placed greater emphasis on theory-oriented academic courses than on professional skills. In the emerging context, FOE is committed to reinvigorating the quality of the teacher education programmes by blending the strong theoretical foundations with sound pedagogical and professional competence that includes engaging and interactive pedagogy, instructional planning, material development, classroom management and evaluation. Practice Teaching/Practicum, as a typical feature of a teacher education programme, needs to be made rigorous to ensure pedagogical competence among the graduates.
FOE envisions the promotion of quality education across the country by preparing highly qualified teachers and educators.
The mission of FOE is to provide leadership to teacher education and professional development in the country by developing itself as a center of excellence for teacher education and training, educational studies and research and innovation.
The goal of FOE is to produce trained teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers needed in the country. It also aims at producing educational planners and managers, curriculum designers and human resources needed for the educational sector of the country through its various programmes. FOE aims at achieving the following objectives:
● To prepare trained teachers for the schools of the country in collaboration with the Ministry of Education;
● To produce teacher educators, education specialists, education managers and administrators;
● To produce high level human resources in the field of education through the M. Phil. and Ph. D. programmes;
● To conduct research studies that contribute to the betterment of the education system in general and the teacher education sub-system in particular;
● To contribute to the growth and development of the education sector of the country;
● To provide expert professional and technical consultancy services to agencies/organizations/ individuals working in different educational sectors;
● To support the MOE, Nepal in the formation of education policy, programmes planning and their implementation and evaluation;
● To work as a national forum for bringing about debates and discussions in orders to address the critical educational issues; and
● To share and disseminate educational research and innovations by linking itself with related national and international organizations.
FoE offers the following academic as well as professional programmes:
● Master of Education (M.Ed.) (four semesters)
● Bachelor of Education (B. Ed.) (annual)
Admission Requirements
The candidates who wish to get admission to FOE must sit for the entrance examination for master’s and M.Phil. programmes. Those who have completed their grade 12/ higher secondary education, or equivalent, are eligible for the four-year B.Ed. programme. However, the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme in social studies subjects is open to those having a Bachelor’s degree in social sciences and other relevant subjects.
The M.Ed. programme is open to those who have completed their B.Ed. in their area of specialization. The M.Phil. programmes is open to all education-background students. Graduates from non- education backgrounds wishing to enroll in this programme have to take an additional of 4 credit-hours. Those people with an M.Phil. degree in Education are eligible for the admission to the Ph.D. programme.
The evaluation policy differs across the programmes. For B.Ed., the students must sit for the final exams conducted by the Controller of Examinations. Considering the nature of the subjects, they also take practical exams. In the M.Ed. programme, the students are evaluated through the internal exam (40%) and the external exam (60%). Whilst Subject teachers are responsible for internal evaluation the Office of the Dean conducts the external exam. The M.Phil. candidates are evaluated by their subject teachers in the internal exam (60%) and by the Office of the Dean on completion of each semester (i.e., end-of- semester exam). All M.Phil. and PhD candidates should carry out independent research and defend their dissertation for the degree.
Research Activities and Publications
FoE conducts both small- and large-scale research in areas of education in collaboration with both national and international agencies. It encourages its faculty by providing research grants to carry out small scale research studies on various issues of education. FoE has been implementing a collaborative research project titled "Inclusive education in Nepal: A study of network governance in selected municipalities". It is a national level study in the field of inclusive education and is funded by the Norwegian Research Council and implemented collaboratively by the partners in Nepal (Faculty of Education Office of the Dean, TU; Central Department of Sociology, TU; and, Social and Academic Innovations, SAIPL), Norway (Oslo Metropolitan University and University of Southeastern Norway) and UK (University College London Institute of Education). The research includes survey and qualitative field work components related to the status of inclusion in education (including inclusive education) in the selected municipalities and schools.
FoE has been awarded with the research grant by Research Directorate of Tribhuvan University for conducting research in the National Priority Area in March 2022. With the research grant, FoE is conducting research entitled “Teacher Education Policies and Programs in Nepal: Assessing Existing Practices and Exploring Opportunities” with an objective of assessing the existing situation of teacher education programmes of TU and other Universities of Nepal and explore the opportunities for re-orienting and enhancing the teacher education programme to address the country's needs and expectations of quality teachers for quality school education. This study is now towards its completion.