Nepal and India

Quick Facts about Nepal-

-Official Language: Nepali
-Capital: Kathmandu
-Population: 26,494,594

Nepal is a country located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People’s Republic of China, and to the south, east and west by the Republic of India. Something interesting Nepal holds is the eighth tallest mountain, Mount Everest. Hinduism is practiced in the country of Nepal, with 83% of Nepali’s in practice. There are other religions, such as Buddhism, Kirat, Islam and Christianity. Many Hindus travel all the way to Nepal for the famous Pashupatinath Temple for pilgrimage. What I was surprised about was the differences between Hindus and Buddhists are very minimal in Nepal because of the cultural and historical intermingling of each other’s’ beliefs. I also looked into the culture of Nepal, which looks into folklore. Traditional stories are passed down from generation to generation, retold by mostly dancing and music. I was really surprised to learn they celebrated their new year in mid-April. They have 12-months and Saturday is the official weekly holiday. Most houses in Nepal are made of light bamboo and walls of mud and cow-dung mix. I would seriously hate to live in those conditions, and I do not understand how they can live like that! Something out of the ordinary I found was the national flag isn’t in a rectangular shape and it’s considered to be the most mathematical in the world! Education in Nepal has increased its enrollment rate in the primary grades, yet they find it more challenging to increase access to secondary education.  I find this really upsetting, since people can’t try and make something of themselves and have to struggle to support their families.

Quick Facts about India-

-Official Language: Hindi/English
-Capital: New Delhi
-Population: 1,210,193,422

India is a country located in South Asia. Surprisingly, it is the second most populated country. It shares land boarders with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma and Bangladesh.  I found out that the Indian economy is on the top twenty list for their GDP, which was pretty interesting to find out. With all of that information, they still face poverty, corruption, malnutrition, inadequate public healthcare and terrorism. They have very diverse religious beliefs around the country, with Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Jainism among the nation’s major religions. According to the website GNU.org, the country of India is split up into 28 States and 7 Union Territories. The government used to let the states control the schooling and what they wanted done, but it became a part of the national level. Now there is a level system broken into 4 levels. The school system in India has four levels: lower primary (age 6 to 10), upper primary (11 and 12), high (13 to 15) and higher secondary (17 and 18). The lower primary school is divided into five “standards”, upper primary school into two, high school into three and higher secondary into two. Students have to learn a common curriculum largely, except for regional changes till the end of high school. There is some amount of specialization possible at the higher secondary level. Students throughout the country have to learn three languages (namely, English, Hindi and their mother tongue). I try to focus more on the educational aspect, seeing as this is an education class and most of the students in the classroom are becoming teachers, so it’s interesting to look at different educational cultures around the world.