Teacher Preparation for Primary English Education in Nepal: Missing Agendas of Diversity and Inclusion

Despite emergent research documenting the teaching and learning of English in early grades in Asian contexts, the policies and practices of preparing teachers for those early grades are hardly researched. Particularly in Nepal, the knowledge about primary (or even secondary) school English teacher preparation is scarce. To this end, this review paper analyzes existing educational policies and training models and programs for preparing primary school English teachers in Nepal, with a special focus on the ways, and the extent to which such policies and practices respond to teachers’ critical competency (i.e., knowledge, skills, and desire for addressing diversity and inclusion). The analysis demonstrates that regardless of legal provisions to prepare primary teachers for diversity and inclusion, pre-service university courses and in-service teacher training curriculum and programs do not seem to prepare teachers to deal with social justice concerns in their diverse classrooms. Contemporary primary teacher education programs rather limit their focus on general pedagogic skills, English language proficiency, teaching methodologies, and instructional material design.