THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

as a backwater, everyone agreed that they were much better connected to
the outside world now than in the relatively recent past. This chapter
investigates what these connections meant in terms of environmental
perception and identity,
8.2 Education
While many question the extent and nature of Nepal's development in
the past forty years, there is little question about the tremendo~~s
growth in the availability of at least basic educational opportunities
for children throughout the country.', Schools were scattered across
the Maya Khola valley, the largest buildings in the landscape and
symbols above all else of the development (vik8s) the government was
seeking to promote. However, it was the ideas and people the schools
engendered, more than their physical structures, which influenced Yakha
senses of identity and environment.
It might have been easy when confronted by the recent growth in new
school buildings to lose a historical perspective on the situation.
Forma! education was not a totally new thing in the hills of East Nepal.
We were struck by how many older men in particular seemed to have picked
up an education of sorts before all the so-called 'educational
development' took place. If anything, there seemed to be something of a
'lost generation' in terms of education in Tamaphok. Thus a 60-year old
Yakha man we knew was we1 1 able to read and write, having learnt during
service in the Indian army6 His son, however, who had remained in
Tamaphok, had not learnt to read, but the man's grandson was attending
the 9th grade of the high school.
The first school in Tamaphok was Indrakal i , which was remembered as