A strong education system is fundamental to supporting young people to lead happy and fulfilled lives within a supportive local, national and global community. In culturally diverse countries like Nepal, a research-and-evidence-based approach is needed to find out what works best for schools. This volume highlights the need for careful analysis of the context and underlines the importance of high-quality research conducted within a range of contexts to inform the development of all aspects of education systems.

This insight brief describes the findings of five British Council-sponsored research studies and nine sponsored case studies, as part of the Connecting Classrooms programme, on developing successful schools in Nepal, focused on curriculum, pedagogy and school leadership.

Issues highlighted across the research include:

• Difficulties finding space for new pedagogical approaches in the current, standardised curriculum.
• Parental expectations around grade attainment.
• Limited training and understanding of role in school leadership.
• Limited CPD for teachers; weak dissemination of school audit documents.
• Limited existing research in the Nepali context.

The primary recommendation is that all initiatives should be dynamic, context-specific, aligned with local and national culture, and safeguarded against a ‘West is best’ mentality to ensure that reforms are embedded in a sustainable manner.