The Critical Thinking (CT) Program in Nepal is being implemented by  Alliance for Social Dialogue (ASD)/Social Science Baha with the support of Education Support Program (ESP) of Open Society Institute (OSI), New York. The Critical Thinking program started in Nepal back in December 2008 with the visit of ESP program officer Svetlana Batrak along with International CT trainers Nicu Cretu and Veronica Cretu. During their visit they conducted a day-long Demonstration Workshop on Critical Thinking Methodology and consulted different stakeholders working in the education sector to assess the feasibility of implementing the CT Program in Nepal. Most of the stakeholders/experts whom the team met expressed the view that teacher development and management is a priority area that needs to be seriously addressed in order to achieve quality education and create a child-friendly environment in Nepal’s education system. The demonstration workshop and follow-up meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Education, civil society organizations and national experts indicated that the CT program is required in Nepal and can feasibly be implemented.

Considering the above problems and challenges, ASD, in consultation/collaboration with the Faculty of Education (FOE) and the National Center for Education Development (NCED), and with the support of OSI is implementing the CT program in Nepal and is currently focused on providing training to teacher trainers, educators, trainers and faculty members in designing classrooms that encourage tolerant, open-minded, innovative thinking among students, who, in turn, become independent thinkers, creative problem-solvers and competent citizens able to take an active role in the improvement of their society.

The main activities envisaged for the CT program in Nepal are a total of five five-day-long workshops for pre-service teacher trainers (in the main, the faculty of the Department of Education) and in-service teacher trainers (mainly staff from the national teacher training organization, the National Centre for Education Development/NCED), half-day demonstration workshops on CT methodology to different stakeholders involved in the education sector, the translation of the book Teaching and Learning Strategies for the Thinking Classroom into the Nepali language, the development of a website and a baseline entitled ‘Existing classroom teaching learning practices in Nepali classrooms’. Beside the final workshop all other activities of the Ist phase of CT program is completed and ASD is in the process of handing the program to a reliable NGO seeking to work on Critical Thinking Program.

The feedback from different stakeholders (government officers, NGOs and educators) during demonstration workshops and other interactions is positive. The participants of both In-Service and Pre-Service are also committed to the training and are always eager to learn new things. The number of participants submitting the assignment on time indicates the enthusiasm of participants to continue the training and their readiness to apply what they have learned things in their classrooms. Hence, despite different challenges to change the perception of the traditional teaching-learning behavior, the CT program has been appreciated by different stakeholders as a viable strategy for improving classroom teaching learning practices in Nepal.