In the context of developed countries, a lot of research has been done to uncover and identify the problems school leaders face in their work but little is known about the school leadership of underdeveloped countries. In a quest to discover contextual problems in terms of role conflict and role ambiguity of school leaders, this qualitative study tries to capture the experiences of principals in Nepal through in-depth interviews of six community school principals. The findings reveal that the major sources of role conflict and ambiguity for principals from Nepal are problematic power-sharing, low job autonomy, dual role conflict, limited professional development training, and lack of leadership knowledge. The study has several policy-level implications such as importance of hiring principals with proven leadership skills and increasing the leadership skills of current principals to ensure that they can tackle these challenges.
Objective: To determine the difficulties faced by students that are learning online in less technologically advanced nations following the COVID-19 pandemic. We intend to find out some of the difficulties that students encounter, and how students perceive themselves in this new learning environment. Methods: A total of 18 students pursuing a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree from two universities in Nepal were included in this study. Semi-structured interview questions were used to reach the findings. Results: Four themes emerged from the data collected about the challenges faced by students: (1) Monotony and difficulties adjusting to online learning. (2) Uncertainty and inability to focus. (3) A feeling of being ignored. (4) Inconsistency between the students’ preferred method of learning and the learning environment. Conclusion: The greatest challenges of online learning were linked to the learning environment, monotony and difficulties adjusting to the new mode of learning. While reviewing the literature, we did not come across any proper term that adequately describes the doubts that students have about themselves, or the sense of loss of existence felt by the students. Therefore, the phrase “Edu-Centric Inexistence” was coined to describe these emotions.
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