Project Overview
This research project examines the expansion and everyday realities of English-medium instruction (EMI) in Nepal’s higher education. Focusing on students and teachers across Education, Business, Nursing, and Pharmacy programs in the Kathmandu Valley, the project explores how EMI shapes language practices, educational experiences, identities, emotions, and inequalities.
Rather than treating EMI simply as a pedagogical choice, the project investigates its connections to broader ideologies of English, socioeconomic mobility, internationalization, and educational success. Particular attention is given to how students and teachers negotiate English, Nepali, and local/Indigenous languages within multilingual university settings, and how these practices reproduce or challenge existing linguistic and social hierarchies.
Research Focus
The project brings together several interconnected areas of inquiry:
Language ideologies and multilingualism — examining teachers’ beliefs about English, Nepali, and local/Indigenous languages and how these beliefs shape classroom practices and reproduce linguistic hierarchies.
Students’ emotions and identities — exploring how aspirations associated with English generate experiences of hope and pride while also producing anxiety, shame, and other unequal emotional experiences.
Neoliberal imagination and linguistic entrepreneurship — investigating why students come to view English-medium education as necessary for mobility, competitiveness, employment, and future success.
Educational and social inequality — examining how students’ previous schooling, linguistic backgrounds, and socioeconomic positions influence their ability to participate and succeed in EMI programs.
Research Design
The broader project used narrative and interpretive approaches to understand students’ and teachers’ experiences of EMI across several higher education institutions in the Kathmandu Valley. Participants included undergraduate students and teachers from Nursing, Pharmacy, Business Administration, and Education programs. Data were generated primarily through open-ended interviews and focus-group discussions.
Participants represented diverse linguistic, educational, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, allowing the project to examine how EMI is experienced differently across social positions.
Key Insights
Across its different strands, the project demonstrates a central paradox of English-medium higher education in Nepal. English is widely imagined as a pathway to socioeconomic mobility, global opportunity, and a desirable future, yet the dominance of English can simultaneously generate educational, linguistic, and emotional inequalities.
Teachers’ beliefs often position English above Nepali and especially local/Indigenous languages, reproducing a hierarchy of linguistic value. Students similarly invest in EMI because English is imagined as essential to future success, but these aspirations can carry substantial costs. Students from non-English-medium schooling backgrounds face particularly significant challenges, while anxiety, stress, and feelings of linguistic inadequacy can extend across student groups.
The project therefore calls attention to the need for more equitable and multilingual approaches to higher education that consider not only academic outcomes but also students’ linguistic identities and socioemotional well-being.
Publications from the Project
Sah, P. K., & Caprario, M. (2026). “‘We will be left behind’: Neoliberal imagination, linguistic entrepreneurship, and reduced well-being in English-medium higher education programs in Nepal.” Language and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2026.2679733
Sah, P. K. (2024). “Teachers’ beliefs and reproduction of language ideologies in English-medium instruction programs in Nepal.” International Journal of Bilingualism. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069241236701
Sah, P. K. (2023). “Emotion and imagination in English-medium instruction programs: Illuminating its dark side through Nepali students’ narratives.” Linguistics and Education, 75, 101150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2023.101150
Other Related Publications
Rana, K., & Sah, P. K. (2025). University teachers’ experiences of online testing in English-medium instruction programmes in Nepal. In Pun, J., Curle, S., & Sah, P. K. (Eds.), Assessment, testing, and evaluation in English-medium education from a global perspective (pp. 52-67). Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800419186-007
Rana, K., & Sah, P. K. (2023). Policy development for English medium instruction at a Nepali University: Unpacking hidden motivations and agendas. In P. K. Sah & F. Fang (eds.), Policies, politics, and ideologies of English-medium instruction in Asian universities: Unsettling critical edges (pp. 48-62). Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003173120-5
Sah, P. K. (2022). English medium instruction as neoliberalism endowment in Nepal’s higher education: Policy-shaping practices. In J. McKinley & N. Galloway (eds.), English-medium instruction practices in higher education: International perspectives (pp. 71-83). Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350167889.ch-006