Art&Education in Nepal, Handicrafts in Nepal

Art:
The whole Kathmandu Valley is really one enormous art gallery and museum, but the arts and architecture in Nepal are inextricably intermingled. The finest woodcarving and the best sculpture are often part of a building- a temple is simply not a temple without its finely carved roof struts. The crafts also reflect the uniquely Nepalese melting pot when Hindu are has Tantric Buddhist overtones and the dividing line between one religion and another is hard to discern.

Lydie Aran's The Art of Nepal (Sahayogi Prakashan, Kathmandu, 1978) is a handy and interesting introduction to Nepalese art and its religious background. These are detailed descriptions of the many Hindu, Buddhist and Hindu-Buddhist deities and their associated religious terminology.

Education:
Under the Rana family, which ruled Nepal from 1846 to 1951, only the upper class had access to education. After the 1951 revolution, Nepal established an education system with free primary education for all children. Primary school begins at the age of 6 and lasts until age 10. Secondary education that follows lasts until the age of 15. Attendance of primary school was nearly universal in 1999–2000. Secondary school enrollment included only 54 percent (62.3 percent of the boys of that age group and 45 percent of the girls) in 1999–2000. Formal schooling in Nepal is constrained by economic and cultural factors such as a bias against educating girls and a need for children to work at home or in the fields. In 2003 the literacy rate was estimated at 45 percent of the adult population, with a large gap between male and female literacy rates. Only 28 percent of the female population was literate in 2003 compared to 63 percent of the males. Urban areas have higher literacy rates than rural areas. In 1990 Nepal launched a 12-year literacy program targeting 8 million people between the ages of 6 and 45 years old. Tribhuvan University, founded in Kathmandu in 1959, is the only doctoral-granting institution of higher education in Nepal. Nepal also has a number of colleges, all of which are either affiliated with, or follow standards set by, Tribhuvan University.