Bram de Muynck

This article helps to construct a 4P Accountability Model by exploring the literature to clarify the concept of accountability and teacher accountability in Nepal and similar contexts. The 4P is an acronym for philosophical, personal, professional, and public accountability, which starts from the inside out. The people’s philosophy of life or purpose comes first and foremost, helping the people to be personally and professionally accountable. Thus, people are more likely to be accountable to the public or to others. Traditionally, accountability was regarded as the equivalent of punishment and consequences. Over time, the concept of accountability has changed. Different types of accountability have been reviewed in this paper, including administrative, intelligent, compassionate, holistic, supportive, crucial, uncommon, democratic, 360-degree, personal and transcendent accountability. Accountability is all about making commitments, making choices, and taking ownership of results, actions, and thinking ( rat ). Accountability is taken as a liability in a legal context, answerability in an organizational context, responsibility in a professional setting, and responsiveness in a political environment. Accountability can be synthesized as a “virtue” and a “mechanism”, and “accountable to” and “accountable for,” which denote different dimensions. The 4P Model can be utilized as a conceptual framework for any empirical research and may help improve people’s personal and professional lives in Nepal and in similar contexts. Besides teacher education, the framework could be utilized in different organizations and disciplines, including management, health, policy, army, politics, business and economics, religion and spirituality, relationships, and media.

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.

Background: This study examines how school leaders in Indigenous-majority contexts mobilise community cultural knowledge to shape school policy and practice. It draws on culturally responsive leadership and transformative leadership theories and focuses on public schools in southern Lalitpur, Nepal, a region predominantly inhabited by the Tamang community. Although Nepal's education policies promote inclusion and the integration of local knowledge, little is known about how these commitments are enacted at the school level. Methods: A qualitative exploratory design was employed across four public schools. Data were generated from 14 participants through 6 in-depth interviews with headteachers, one assistant headteacher, and School Management Committee (SMC) chairpersons; 2 sharing circles involving eight teachers; school observations; and document analysis, including school activity records, academic calendars, codes of conduct, and local curriculum materials. Findings: The findings reveal that school leaders conceptualise local knowledge as a living system encompassing language, rituals, ecological knowledge, moral values, and community institutions. Leaders with cultural and linguistic proximity to the community build stronger trust, mediate conflicts more effectively, and involve elders and local knowledge holders in the decision-making processes. Local knowledge was integrated into the curriculum, school activities, and calendars through language instruction, cultural performances, ecological learning, and community participation. School leaders also play a critical advocacy role by translating cultural values into formal policies and negotiating with local governments. However, these efforts were constrained by examination-oriented schooling, limited resources, insufficient teacher training, language politics, inability to map local knowledge, and weak institutional support. Conclusion: The study highlights culturally responsive leadership as relational, context-sensitive, and advocacy-driven, demonstrating how school leaders function as cultural agents and policy translators. Novelty: This study provides one of the first empirical accounts of how the Indigenous Tamang community's cultural knowledge is mobilised through school leadership practices in Nepal, helping to bridge the gap between national policy rhetoric and local enactment.

Church disaffiliation by millennials is a common phenomenon in Western countries, including the Netherlands, where conservative Reformed churches have been affected by it. Parents have a major influence on their children’s religious socialisation; however, little is known about how church leavers experience this influence. We examined millennials’ experiences of their parents’ parenting style concerning religion. Most of the parents in question adopted a combination of authoritative or permissive parenting style and authoritarian style regarding religious socialisation. They also exhibited ambiguity by emphasising the cognitive aspect of believing. As a result, their children experienced believing in God as having to comply with rules and obligations. This does not fit with millennials’ views of life and core values of autonomy and authenticity. The findings suggest that, for parents, it is more important to focus on the process than on the desired outcome; it is also important to transmit faith by doing, by showing, and talking about what it does to you as a parent.

There is ample research available about church disaffiliation among millennials, but no study has addressed their parents’ experiences: how it affects them, and what they see as contributing factors. The central question of our qualitative study is how parents experience their children’s church disaffiliation. This exploratory study used focus groups to determine how parents experienced their children’s disaffiliation. Appraisal theory was used to interpret parents’ emotions. A wide variety of emotions were expressed, with disappointment and guilt prevailing. Overall, the study showed that most parents experienced their child’s church disaffiliation as a parental failure and that their faith was problematised by it.

In het meritocratische discours wordt een appel gedaan op het woekeren met talenten. Het begrip gaat terug op een gelijkenis verteld door Jezus. In deze bijdrage wordt vanuit de context van het Bijbelboek Matteus, waarin het voorkomt, nagegaan wat de eigenlijke betekenis is van de aansporing om talenten te gebruiken. De verkenning laat zien dat de betekenis weliswaar te maken heeft met het maken van winst, maar dat die een heel ander karakter heeft dan we doorgaans denken. Deze wordt vervolgens toegepast op de praktijk van het onderwijs.

Current efforts toward inclusion in education have resulted in a strong emphasis on personalized learning. This article argues that biblical images of congregations and dealing with needs can inspire moves toward a hospitable community life in schools. Biblical keywords help us imagine how inclusive school practices can be shaped. Attention is given to safety, care and mercy, equivalence, justice, gifts, and carrying the load of others. Based on a theological exploration, the author calls for a number of moves: from the individual to the community, from instrumentalism to realism, from access to the school climate, from organization to pedagogy, and from risk to trust, as well as widening the lens from pupils to staff. A definition of hospitable education is proposed that stresses the equal importance of building communities in classrooms and among staff. For both parties, participants should influence the school climate by training themselves to appreciate a diversity of gifts and to be attentive to all kinds of needs.

Two of the greatest Dutch educationalists of the twentieth century, Philipp Abraham Kohnstamm (1875–1951) and Martinus Jan Langeveld (1905–1989), believed that education meant, above all, the formation of a conscience. They developed their ideas in a time full of developments within Europe: the rise of fascism, two world wars, and pioneering theories on human development by Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), among others. Kohnstamm’s and Langeveld’s educational theories were also influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by optimistic ideas about the spontaneous development of the child and the unique personality of humankind, as expressed in movements such as New Education, New Psychology, and the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). This article aims to compare these two Dutch educationalists on conscience formation to contextualise their differences and similarities and subsequently understand them within European developments, such as New Psychology, and specifically the Dutch context of the twentieth century.

Children’s religious education is vital for the formation of pupils in Dutch Orthodox Protestant schools. Therefore, it seems self-evident that parents and teachers cooperate. This article presents research on parents’ and teachers’ opinions about the helpfulness of cooperative practices in religious education. A total of 1346 parents and teachers completed questionnaires developed from a previous study. This article finds that parents and teachers cherish the ideal of ‘coherence between school and family’ although differences between the respondent groups and school types occurred. Moreover, the research shows that this ideal influences the valuing of cooperative practices of religious education.