By Rebecca Uprety
When I first became involved in the study on the status of inclusive education in Nepal, I understood it primarily as a research project being led by my colleague, Alka Gautam. The novelty of inclusive education in Nepal and lack of ground-level research made the research itself seem foundational to inclusive education in Nepal, upon which future discussions, planning, and policies can be referenced. It seeks to find the current level of accessibility to children with disabilities in this convenience sample, as well as highlight the barriers by which accessibility is out of reach.
The initial scope of this research was supposed to be nationwide, with a target to reach 1000 of schools’ Principal. As I merely assisted Alka sometimes and observed the way she researched the questions, called, got appointments, elaborated the questionnaires, addressed the queries, introduced our organization, and asked follow-up questions, I slowly grasped the scale and complexity of this research. After much pondering, and of course multiple prospective participants inquiring if there was an online participation option, a Google Form was formulated. During this process, the responsibility to get the survey form filled was then transferred to me.
I’ve been told as I sometimes fail to notice it on my own, I sound stiff and mechanical while making calls for safeguarding orientation programs. I also, at the initial phase, had problems responding to anything that seemed out of “script”. To make sure my mind doesn’t go blank, I wrote down a few possible directions and potential questions that can fluster me if I’m underprepared, as visual cues, and let the conversation flow. A few of the challenges emerged as we progressed. We noticed slight mistakes in the formatting of multiple or single choice questions, which were noticed in the absence of my other coworkers. Since I didn’t have access to edit the Google Form then and there and was stuck, I decided to create a new one with the correct question types and response formats. As the survey process progressed, a pattern of behaviour was noticed where the survey questions were answered with acquiescence bias and prestige bias. Looking deeper into it revealed the leading nature of the survey questions. We all came up with more neutral alternatives to extract the required information. Then the questionnaire was revised accordingly.
The project I worked on from 8th May to 5th August comprised mostly desk-based emails and telephone outreach, which might sound monotonous and repetitive, and I definitely had certain assumptions of how this would go in my mind. In terms of sheer raw data, the span of 3 months entailed calling 629 of Kathmandu’s private schools, where 390 individuals were reached, but engagement was limited by 19 outright refusals (driven by factors such as stress over a since-repealed school tax and personal circumstances like bereavement) and 17 requests for formal government backing before participating, alongside 4 wrong numbers. Of the 90 Kathmandu’s public schools called, 63 individuals were reached, with participation constrained or ineligible mostly by 13 contacts being retired, 8 wrong numbers, and a respondent requesting official paperwork from the Mahanagar before considering the survey.
Of the 94 schools on the Bhaktapur list, 74 were called, and while only 6 individuals were reached, as well as agreed to fill out the form. For the Lalitpur list, only 25 of 208 schools had been contacted at this stage, with negligible disruptions from 2 retired contacts and 2 wrong numbers, though 15 calls remain unanswered.
The large chunk of data might overemphasize the monotony of the task, but it was fairly balanced by juggling other simple but engaging work. The participation rate of initial months which was around 10 responses per week kept me moderately fueled and so did the supervision and assistance by our team whenever needed. During the times of slower reach and response rate, I did feel conflicted at times by the dichotomy of the nature of learning through the research survey but I’ve come to terms with this just being tension in the process of learning.
Upon reflecting, just based on reaching roughly half of the attempted calls already shattered my unexamined assumption of how this reaching out was supposed to go. I must admit, I was a bit discouraged. Over the three-month data collection period, 818 of the 1,021 schools (80.1%) on the sampling lists were attempted to reach and 453 individuals (55.4% of all calls) were successfully reached. Despite the seemingly decent chunk of prospective participants, 67 forms were completed. The 14.6% response rate surely has to say something about the nature of this field, and the status of inclusive education in Nepal itself, or at the very least, prompted me to question it. The lack of urgency and priority within what we would consider the most well informed and up-to-date educational practitioner in applied education definitely perplexed me. While few contacted individuals expressed their concerns and provided reasons for non-participation , such as time constraints, lack of government backing, research fatigue, etc, I can only speculate the possible reasons for the reluctance to participate based on the tone and attitude, without fully grasping the extent of efforts and responsibilities within the role. Unsolicited request of their time could be one of the obvious reasons for the reluctance, but so could the sensitivity of the topic itself could benefit from face-to-face rapport-building as well as careful navigation of delicate data. One could also hypothesize structural factors like underresourcing and stigma contributing to the reluctance to participate. Regardless, the difficulty of confirming whether accessible education is truly available to all highlights the significant barriers that must be overcome before meaningful inclusion can be fully realized.
Personally, the process has also changed how I approach research. Going forward, I plan to rely less on scripted conversations, prepare formal endorsement letters in advance, review survey questions more critically for possible bias, and remain attentive to how sensitive topics such as disability are introduced. Ultimately, the experience has directed me to read into silence too. The findings may be limited in number, but the process has provided a valuable foundation for asking harder questions about why inclusive education remains difficult to discuss, implement, and measure.
*Rebecca Uprety works at Inclusive Education Nepal.