Walk into any consultancy office in Kathmandu, and the conversation is almost always the same: IELTS scores, statements of purpose, visa timelines. Each year, tens of thousands of young Nepalis fold their dreams into suitcases and line up at Tribhuvan International Airport, convinced that prosperity is a destination, somewhere far beyond Nepal’s borders.
But this wave of migration is more than just a labor market trend. It points to a deeper, quieter problem. Economic understanding is largely missing from our public life, and most people are never really taught how the economy around them works. As a result, they are left to make life-changing decisions without the tools to fully understand their choices. Until people can make sense of their own economy, this outflow will continue. Not just because wages are higher abroad, but also because many simply do not see the opportunities that exist at home.
Economics has a reputation problem. Mention the word, and many imagine impenetrable graphs, abstract models, and the cold logic of “rational actors.” The reality is very different. In the end, economics is really about people. It’s about how we make decisions when resources are scarce, when we are competing with others, and when our choices carry consequences.
When I shifted from the natural sciences to economics, I didn’t just change fields. I gained a new way of reading the world. Economics helps explain the “why” behind the headlines. It shows why a government spending surge can make groceries more expensive, why postponing a job to pursue higher education carries a real opportunity cost, and how a country’s trade policies limit or expand the choices available to its citizens. Without this perspective, navigating public life is like walking without a map. People become more vulnerable to political narratives and less prepared to make informed decisions about their financial future.
Nepal’s economy rests on a surprisingly fragile foundation. The country has become structurally dependent on remittances, the hard-earned savings of Nepali workers in the Gulf, Malaysia, and other countries, to support household incomes and maintain foreign exchange reserves. Today, remittances account for a significant share of Nepal’s GDP, making it one of the most remittance-reliant economies in Asia.
These inflows provide immediate relief but do little to build the internal capacity needed for lasting prosperity. Economists describe them as a painkiller rather than a cure. There is a well-known risk called Dutch Disease, where reliance on a single source of income can lead to the neglect of other productive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.
Understanding this helps answer questions that might otherwise seem puzzling. For instance, why does Nepal, a country with fertile hills and abundant water, import billions of rupees worth of agricultural goods each year? The answer lies not in geography but in the persistent neglect of domestic production, a neglect that remittances have helped conceal.
The principle of comparative advantage teaches that nations thrive not by producing everything. Instead, it should focus on what it can do better and more efficiently than others. That’s how countries grow and benefit from trade. For Nepal, the lesson is clear: energy.
Nepal’s rivers hold some of the greatest hydroelectric potential in the world. Yet for decades, the country imported electricity from India while much of its own water resources remained untapped. The idea of Nepal as the “Battery of South Asia” has become a national aspiration. Yet the gap between this dream and reality shows that many people haven’t fully understood how the economy works or how to turn big ideas into practice. In other words, the public’s lack of economic imagination partly explains why the vision remains unrealized. A population with economic understanding doesn’t simply accept industrial stagnation; it asks why it exists.
The example of Vietnam offers valuable insight. Just a generation ago, it was mostly an agrarian economy. Through deliberate, strategic choices, the country focused on electronics and light manufacturing, integrating itself into global supply chains with discipline and consistency. Today, Vietnam stands among Asia’s fastest-growing economies. Vietnam’s success was not just a matter of resources; it depended on a public and leadership capable of thinking strategically about how to deploy them.
An economically literate generation is a questioning generation. It demands better policy, builds more resilient businesses, and sees Nepal not as a place to leave, but as an economy to lead. This does not mean Nepal needs a generation of professional economists. The goal is both more modest and more urgent: giving ordinary citizens the conceptual tools to understand the decisions made in their name.
If Nepal’s schools can teach the mechanics of photosynthesis and the chronology of ancient dynasties, they can certainly teach how a national budget is created, why inflation reduces purchasing power, and what it means for a country to run a current account deficit. These are not abstract academic exercises; they are the everyday grammar of economic life.
Yet in Nepali school curricula, economics is treated as an elective—a subject for those planning to study commerce rather than a civic necessity for all students. That distinction is no longer defensible. The Ministry of Education and curriculum developers must recognize that economic literacy belongs alongside mathematics and civics as a foundational skill, not an optional add-on.
Nepal’s long-term future will not be determined by the next foreign aid package, a temporary surge in Gulf labor demand, or a single hydropower milestone. It will be shaped by the cumulative quality of thinking, the everyday decisions of millions of citizens, entrepreneurs, and civil servants about risk, investment, trade, and governance.
A country that exports its most talented people while importing its most basic necessities has yet to answer the most fundamental question of development: how to create conditions where ambition is directed inward rather than outward. Economic literacy alone will not solve this challenge, but without it, the question cannot even be addressed. Young Nepalis who understand concepts like opportunity cost, comparative advantage, and the structural risks of remittance dependency are better equipped to make choices that benefit not only themselves but the economy around them. This is the kind of knowledge that cannot be packed into a suitcase and does not require a departure gate.
