Nepal’s Climate Education Gap
Systems Built for a Climate That No Longer Exists
Nepal’s Risk Profile
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4th Most Vulnerable: Nepal's ranking globally for climate risk.
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The "Paused" Year: How erratic monsoons create a permanent achievement gap.
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Economic Impact: Every month of school lost can reduce future income by 3-5%.
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Policy Need: A call for "Climate-Fluid" academic calendars.
Nepal is a global climate hotspot, yet its education system is built on a "ghost" climate, a predictable cycle of seasons that no longer exists. Our academic calendars are rigid, assuming that every Monday in July will be a day for instruction. Academic calendars assume continuity, curricula assume full completion, and exams assume uninterrupted instruction. When disasters strike, learning simply pauses because there is no national framework for learning continuity. This "brittleness" means that a single landslide in a remote district doesn't just block a road; it stops the intellectual development of an entire generation for weeks.
This gap is not about missing information; it is about missing infrastructure for learning under stress. We build schools of concrete but fail to build the "digital or offline bridges" that allow learning to travel when the school building becomes a shelter. In the Terai and mid-hill regions, students lose an average of three to five weeks of school annually - a "seasonal learning loss" that current policies ignore. Without offline tools or teacher guidance during emergencies, education becomes fragile and inaccessible for the most vulnerable.
Crucially, the World Bank identifies that for every year of schooling lost, a child’s future earning potential drops significantly, with girls being disproportionately affected by increased risks of early marriage during prolonged closures. ReGen exists because this gap is widening. We cannot expect children to wait for massive, slow-moving bureaucracies to adapt while disruption becomes their daily reality. Our work focuses on creating the immediate "soft infrastructure" needed to keep minds active when the physical classroom fails.
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