Participation of the Gurung Community in Higher Education across Various Educational Institutions in Dharan

Abstract

The education means "to bring up" or "to bring forth" which circumscribes to deliver the knowledge, skills, experiences, and social traits that manifest in various forms. Gurung is one of the ethnic groups indigenous to Nepal. In their language, they call it "Tamu" where ‘Ta’ means thunder and ‘mu’ symbolizes the sky. The objectives of this study was to find out the number of Gurung students learning in higher education at various educational institutes of Dharan and to anlyze their parents’ occupations, educational status and family income. This is a quantitative, cross-sectional, perspective, observational study and data were collected from between March and April 2025. Among the Gurung community, 1.21% are engaged in higher education, with 94% pursuing bachelor's degrees and 6% enrolled at the master's level. Regarding occupation, 44% of the students' fathers are involved in farming. Additionally, 10% of the students come from families with a monthly income exceeding NPR 200,000.