Research Centre for Educational Innovation and Development (CERID)

Introduction:

Since its establishment in 1975, CERID has been working for the development of education in Nepal, especially with emphasis on addressing the need for achieving academic excellence in the education system. For this, CERID's activities are directed towards educational innovation, issue based research and need-based training programs.

Moreover, CERID has devoted itself to piloting innovative ideas that bear on national educational issues and concerns, and disseminating research outcomes.

Objectives:

The objectives of CERID are:

· To undertake research activities in various useful aspects of school and higher education,

· To carry out action research projects focused on linking education to development,

· To organize training programs, research-based and professional development activities, and

· To disseminate and share experiences and information by organizing seminars/workshops and by publishing research reports, journals, etc.

Scope of Work

CERID's involvement spreads over a wide-array of activities such as educational planning and management, early childhood development, primary education, secondary education, higher education, alternative forms of education, education for sustainable development, and gender and education. Moreover, CERID has extended its hands to work in various areas in partnership with different organizations. Specifically, CERID and Faculty of Education (FOE), Tribhuvan University (TU) started working to link research with teaching in school and higher education institutions.

CERID's Major Achievement in Recent Years

Since 2002, CERID has been carrying out Formative Research Project (FRP) for the Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES), Government of Nepal with the support of the Ministry of Education and Research, Norway. The purpose of the FRP is to provide technical support to MOES by bringing forward strategic research based information on the process of implementation Education for All (EFA) 2004-2009 and by assisting its capacity building initiatives. Under FRP, altogether 51 researches have already been undertaken in different themes by 2007 and 8 researches are ongoing in 2008. For conducting these researches, CERID has also involved researchers from FOE, TU and other organizations in addition to CERID researchers.

The stakeholders experienced that FRP had successfully served the purposes for which it was designed.

ECD Resource Centre of CERID with the collaboration of UNICEF, Nepal has undertaken important activities including the publication of ECD journal and ECD newsletters. Under this collaboration, CERID provided higher education research grant of Rs 50,000 each to 2 M.Ed. and 3 M.Phil. Students of Tribhuvan University to undertake theses on ECD as a part of their M.Ed.and M. Phil. studies. Similarly, CERID has provided action research mini-grants of Rs. 15,000 each to three different organizations working in the field of ECD. The local researchers from each of these organizations were also provided with a week-long training on action research. CERID researchers provided continuous support to the individuals and organizations in undertaking action researches. Under the ECD Resource Centre activities, CERID is also organizing dialogue sessions on pertinent issues related to ECD in a regular manner.

CERID has recently started a study on Assessment of Child-friendly School Interventions working collaboratively with an international consultant with the support of UNICEF, Nepal. This assessment has been launched to develop a thorough understanding of the effectiveness of interventions implemented to date, to inform future decision on how, where, when and to what, limited resources should be mobilized in order to ensure the best results for the most educational disadvantaged children. The study will be completed in August 2008. Likewise, a Baseline Survey of Parents'/Guardians' Knowledge, Attitude and Practice on ECD and Primary Education in UNICEF's Education Extra Focus Districts with the support of UNICEF, Nepal will be commenced in June 2008.

With the support from Nepal National Commission of UNESCO, CERID has already

completed a research on Life-skill Education for Out-of-school Youths, the main purpose of which was to address the needs of youths who dropped out from school education system. Similarly, as a part of the UNESCO/UNICEF Regional Cooperation on Early Childhood Policy Review, CERID completed a country case study on Early Childhood Development Policy Review in October 2007. With the support of University Grants Commission, CERID is undertaking Management of Tribhuvan University Provident Fund: An Action Research to Strengthen the System.

CERID in collaboration with the Central Department of Home Science and Women Studies, Dhaka University and Liverpool John Moore University, London, UK is carrying out a joint project on Higher Education and Research in the Context of Gender and Development Issues in Nepal and Bangladesh. The focus of the partnership is to build the capacities of the partner organizations particularly in Nepal and to stimulate faculty members' and students' activities that establish linkage with other partners, GOs, NGOs, CBOs in developing critical understanding on centrality of gender to development.

Realizing the need for linking research with teaching in higher education institutions, CERID is conducting two internal projects:

(i) Situation Analysis of Affiliated Campuses with Program of Faculty of Education and

(ii) Internal Assessment at M.Ed.: Issues, Challenges and Prospects.

Prof. Arbinda Lal Bhomi Ph.D.

Executive Director

CERID

Tribhuvan University

P.O. Box 2161, Balkhu, Kathmandu, Nepal

Email:

Website: http://WWW.cerid.org