This article answers the question: What constitutes the concept of Integrated Curriculum ( ic ) in the Nepali basic education context? Firstly, it focuses on clarifying the key meanings and concepts of curriculum and ic to basic-level teachers, teacher educators and educational consultants and policy makers in education sector. Secondly, it analyses the historical and philosophical foundations of ic and how it has evolved within basic-level education. Thirdly, it examines dominant models of ic formulated by the Government of Nepal for the execution of ic in basic education classrooms. To address the main research question, this article adopts a narrative literature review which is appropriate for conceptual clarification and theoretical synthesis. This design includes literature, policy documents, and theoretical and historical texts. It analyses the theoretical foundations of ic to provide a more explicit concept of ic . Furthermore, this article evaluates the existing models of ic in the Nepali context. The findings reveal that ic integrates the concepts and contents to solve real-life problems and constructs the learners’ knowledge. Studies advocate holistic learning by emphasizing learner-centered, thematic model, interdisciplinary and democratic education. As synthetization of our study, we developed a model the Contextualized Model of Integrated Curriculum ( cmic ). The meaning of ic has only been articulated implicitly in policy, which may lead to misconceptions of ic . It is recommended that policymakers clarify the concept of integration explicitly, so that basic-level teachers can understand ic in meaningfully which equips the learners to live in the complex and diverse community of the 21st century.