Challenges and Opportunities of Post Graduate Mother–Students at Prithvi Narayan Campus Pokhara, Nepal (A Case Study of Mother–Students in Prithvi Narayan Campus)

Abstract

This study “Challenges and Opportunities of Post-Graduate Mother-Students at Prithvi Narayan Campus, Pokhara, Nepal” is a descriptive and exploratory study which was based on the different challenges and opportunities of mother-students who study in the Master’s degree at Prithvi Narayan Campus at Pokhara, Nepal. The study was conducted on 32 respondents of Master degree students who are mothers and studying in three faculties namely Management, Humanities and Education with different major subjects because there were no respondents in the faculty of Science and Technology. Since the total number of mother-students in the campus was impossible to calculate the universe is indefinite. So, the respondents were chosen purposively using snowball sampling method. Case studies were taken to get in-depth and reliable information in this study. Case studies are backed by observations and in-depth interviews which were analyzed by qualitative analysis process using the content of the case studies. The majority of the respondents were Brahmin-Chhetri with 29 i.e. 90.6 percentages respondents followed by Janajati with 2 respondents i.e. 6.2 percentages and disadvantaged with 1 respondent i.e. 3.1 percentage. 65.62 percentages, 25 percentages and 9.38 percentages respondents were married during Bachelor, +2 and SLC level respectively. The mean age of the respondents was 27.9 with 25 as a modal age. As the study concluded the challenges of the mother-students are domestic, professional, economic and cultural. In domestic challenges, different domestic factors like household responsibilities, family responsibilities, children responsibilities, husband’s inability to spare time, absence of the elders to take care of the children in nuclear family and conflict in the family were deducted. In professional challenges, obligation to change the subjects and give up the study, career at stake, timing of the college, pregnancy during examination and degrading position were concluded. In cultural challenges; early marriage, rumor mongering in the neighborhood, value in the family, compulsion to bear the child after the marriage and coordinator in the cultural practices were deducted whereas in economic challenges; conflict in the family and job were deducted. So far the opportunities are concerned, social, economic and professional opportunities were deducted from the case studies. In social opportunities, it was concluded that they were getting honor in the family and society, inspiration in the home, grouping of the peers with the same conditions and use of family planning. In economic opportunity, they got opportunity to job and no pressure of job from the family whereas in professional opportunity, they were able to get capability and courage along with time to the study. In the past over years of Nepal, women were prohibited from getting education, but the condition of the women nowadays is altering. In this study, it was deducted that although there are too many challenges for the mother-students in the society as well as in the family, they are getting opportunities. Especially, in the educated family, the condition of the women is better. Theory of patriarchy, Marxist feminism as well as some gender theories explains that the women are oppressed and they were subordinated by male in the society as well as in the family, but this study deducted that the condition of the mother-students are not same as explained by these theories. The scenario is altering and they are treated somehow equally in the Nepalese society these days especially in the educated family. The global changing process of the world through mass media, global education, remittance economy, different movements by the NGOs and INGOs around the world, caused these changes in the lives of mother-students.