From the Peaks and Back: Exploring the Educational Journeys of Trans-Himalayan Students in Kathmandu, Nepal

In a rapidly modernizing Nepal where urbanization is on the rise, families in rural areas participate by sending their children to urban schools, vast distances from home. Children/youth who have migrated to Kathmandu from Trans-Himalayan regions of Nepal, who experience interconnected and multidimensional conditions of poverty are the focus of this study. The journey these students undertake to Kathmandu span thousands of kilometres and often results in long-term (multi-year) family separation. The children in this study who migrated were between the ages of 4-10 and did not return for several years, with very minimal and/or no contact with family during this period of family separation. This thesis explores and chronicles the journeys taken and rationales for such acute family migration experiences; educational integration of Himalayan students into boarding school residency in Kathmandu; and emotional articulations of return visits back to their remote villages.