Developing English Curricula in Higher Education: A Case of Kathmandu University

Abstract

In this autoethnographic account, I critically reflect on my experience of the curriculum development process for the Master of Philosophy (M.Phil) in English Language Education (ELE) program at Kathmandu University about a decade ago. It expresses our philosophical and ideological stance in formulating graduate attributes, determining the areas of concentration, selecting the content, implementing the curriculum and evaluating the achievements. I noted three major insights in the process. First, the market determines the formulation of graduate attributes, not the knowledge and insights acquired in universities. Second, in this part of the world, the western cultural values of scholarship determine the area of concentration and content selection. Third, we can implicitly integrate the values envisioned by policy documents because the discipline discourse surfaces explicitly. The paper contributes to the discourse of framing curriculum in English language education in the South Asian context.