According to its author, an advisor to Nepal´s National Educational Planning Commission (NEPC) in the mid-1950´s, "Nepal Diary is not an autobiography….it is a biography of an event, a project, a program, a revolution."
The nine-part volume takes us through the planning and implementation of the education programme by the NEPC during the early and mid- Fifties, a time of great public enthusiasm. Popular participation in the planning process was such a priority that opinions on the direction of national education were sought even from illiterate people, who voted with their thumb-prints on questionnaires.
Nepal Diary reminds us of those days of hope, with volunteer teachers, voluntary labour to build schools, and NEPC members who "would devote from 750 to 1000 hours to their assignments without pay". In response to such enthusiasm, the NEPC defined the goals for national education for Nepal as: universal education (for children and adults), national education (one single public system) and free education (primary education and literacy immediately).
It is impossible to read this book without contrasting those early days of Nepali education with the directionless meanderings of today. The book, for example, describes the establishment of a Teacher Training Center. Yet where are the trained educators the country needs so desperately today? According to the World Bank, the literacy figure for Nepal remains at a low 20 per cent.