Submit your Article

The price of gold has dropped by Rs 1, 300 per tola in the domestic market on Friday.

According to the Federation of Nepal Gold and Silver Dealers’ Association, the yellow metal is being traded at Rs 241, 700 per tola today.  

Similarly, the silver is being traded at Rs 3, 100 per tola.

The last few generations have grown up believing that schools are places of learning while prisons are popularly perceived as stations of punishment eventually intended for improvisation or reformation. Despite having clear and unassailable distinctions, if we look closely, the line between the two sometimes feels blurred these days; and, sadly, the first is inheriting qualities of the latter. Globally, prisons are now being proactively reimagined as reform centers, but our schools, ironically, are increasingly resembling as sites of sentencing or tantamount to quasi-prisons.

Government and community schoolteachers in the nation are often and repeatedly protesting, inter alia, on demand of professional growth and security while nearly 7.5m students are grappling for the commendable academic characters and conducts. Some semi-possessed reporting from the government agencies confirm that—among schoolable children—around 60 percent flow to government schools and the rest in private ones, which are mushrooming from major thoroughfares to every nook and corners of cities plus suburbs. 

In cities, however, nearly 80 percent of children are boarded in private institutions. For parents willing to enroll their wards in privately-owned schools, choosing it becomes one of the stressful decisions, often driven by convenience, family relocation, standard complex or peer pressure. Schools, meanwhile, compete with one another through flashy banners, glossy advertisements and promises of modern facilities, quality education, holistic development and myriads of other magnificent commitments. An ingrained obsession of presenting self as bigger and better schools has been an indefensibly burdensome luxury that many are professedly proclaiming. Nonetheless, most of the claims are mere meaningless myths.  

Meaningless myth

A dangerous misconception has taken root and often been tough to be chopped out: the idea that schools with skyrocketing buildings, multiplexes, exorbitant fees, techno-driven show-ups, lifts and swimming pools and larger enrollments are automatically the best. In truth, the smaller the class size, the greater the attention a child receives, and the more effective the learning goes. Schools should be foundations, carefully laying down habits and curiosity. 

Universities, by contrast, are where specialized and collective mass learning happens. At the very crude stage of experiencing academic milieu and joy, many schools are pompously heading to burden the fresh cum immature minds with unreasonable overloads that ultimately rankles them remarkably in regular course of their later academic entourage. Learning in the first phase of schooling in home-spawn context and language may be pretty easy and evidently doable as well.

Contrary to the utmost sense, many schools are distorting pre-supposed fine-tuned balance by utterly overburdening children with an obsession for English from the very earliest grades. Language is important, but it is only a medium—not the destination. What truly matters is the ability to think, to reason, to feel, to conceptualize and to cognate. Instead of nurturing these qualities, some schools prioritize rote memorization of English words, producing students who may sound fluent but lack critical and creative thoughts. The eventual outcome is mere English-murmuring machines, not independent thinkers.

Another problem lies in the weight of expectations—sometimes literally. In many cases, the schoolbag of almost all children is almost as heavy as the children themselves. Exacerbating the situation, countless textbooks and impractically time-consuming overload of homework have turned learning into drudgery and have even disturbingly occupied the parents in most cases.

Students who are deprived of adequate rest, who are frightened of not completing assignments or who equate school with fear are unlikely to develop a lifelong love of learning. Surveys show that parents often end up helping their children late into the night, feeding them as they scribble homework. Schools that pile on such busy work are not raising resilient learners but anxious children who see school as a place of punishment rather than discovery. The balance between envisioning, expectation and experience is quite brittle.

Brittle balance 

What is forgotten is that true education extends beyond classrooms and assignments. Expected academic growth and shrewd sense also stems from simple conversations with parents, sharing what one has learnt, playing with friends, helping at home, joining in community life and creatively engaging into disseminating their learning among pals and parents. These activities not only strengthen academic foundations but also foster mental health and social maturity. Unfortunately, many private schools have remained deliberately indifferent and malignant to accept the fact and adopt the appropriate mechanism in this front. 

Adding to the burden, the culture of multitasking mania has been a perishing pleasure. After long school hours, children are often pushed into music, dance, drawing, karate, swimming, horse riding—even archery—without any thought for their actual interests or capacities. Parents, eager to provide everything, risk overwhelming their children in the process. For some, the exhaustion begins with the time commute: hours on a bus to and from school. Fatigue alone can kill curiosity to a great extent. 

Many such things posed and impulsively prescribed to children are proscribing the natural growth, usual mastery and expected smartness. In fact, deposited anticipations are stymied and unknowingly preempted.  

Ironically, earlier generations who began as average students often grew stronger over time. Through gradual self-learning and hard work, they matured by the time higher education determined their career avenues. They knew the value of effort and were motivated to succeed evidently at the level which would capaciously contribute to the projected processional path.

Today, many students are excessively overloaded at the school level but they grow disillusioned when reaching university. In fact, many are found to have fully lost the energy, interest, aura and passion for learning given the pressure and stress in schools. The crucial stage of education meant to shape their professions receives them burnt-out, lax and indifferent. Statistics show students excelling at school but increasingly faltering in higher education, eventually leveling out as average in professional life.

The world’s best education systems share a common trait: school learning is easy, natural and enjoyable. Rigorous hard work comes later, but the school years prioritize growth in line with a child’s natural rhythm. A stone house may appear plain but is sturdy, hygienic and lasting; a glass palace may dazzle but is fragile and fleeting. Flashy, expensive, “hi-fi” schooling is the glass palace—grand in appearance, obviously unsustainable in reality.

Time to reflect

As parents, everyone must pause. Each ought to question: are we sending children to schools that nurture curiosity, resilience and social maturity? Or are we, perhaps unintentionally, placing them in educational prisons—burdened by books, trapped by homework and locked in a cycle of anxiety?

The answer depends not on how tall the building is or how expensive the fees are, but on how well the school balances academic rigor with natural growth, creativity and humanity. Are we schooling our wards on fashion or mission? The reality is that learners are grounded rather than growing, by and large.

Talks at the Cop30 climate summit in Brazilwere disrupted on Thursday after a fire broke out in the venue, triggering an evacuation just as negotiators were preparing to try to land a deal to strengthen international efforts to address the climate crisis, The Guardian reported.

Thirteen people were treated for smoke inhalation, organisers said in a statement, after the fire broke out in the pavilion area of the conference centre in Belém, Brazil.

The cause of the fire, which was brought under control within minutes, was being investigated but was believed to be an electrical device, probably a microwave, Reuters reported, citing the local fire department, according to The Guardian.

Rosario Central were declared the 2025 'League Champion' by the Argentine Football Association following an unprecedented rule change at the end of the season, which was decided on Thursday at a meeting at the body's headquarters, Reuters reported.

Rosario were crowned with the new title after Angel Di Maria's side finished the regular season of the Apertura and Clausura tournaments with a combined 66 points, four clear of Boca Juniors.

Under previous regulations, the team with the highest annual points tally earned only a Copa Libertadores berth, according to Reuters.