Mr. Sujan Kayastha is Director at Thames International College. He manages the academic team at Thames and provides leadership for all academic activities in the undergraduate program. Mr. Kayastha completed his undergraduate degree with dual major in International Relations and Management from Webster University, St. Louis. He further pursued his graduate studies in International Non-Governmental Organizations from Regents College, London.
In this podcast interview, we talk to him about his personal motivation and institutional approach to higher education in Nepal. He is driven by the core belief that education is a lifelong process and not just the content curriculum and a series of exams. At Thames, he is working to provide a liberal arts approach to education so that the students can take an interdisciplinary and more holistic problem-solving approach. For instance: studies in Social Work is combined with Rural Development so that students can get a context to their social work and Journalism students also study Sociology to gain deeper insights about the society. At Thames, Business students can also sample various humanities courses.
Thames College invests in generating independent learners and cultivate values such as empathy, service, cooperation, and leadership. Those ambitious missions are not just stated on the college website and brochures but planned and integrated within course structure, college activities and design of college spaces.
One very interesting point Mr. Kayastha mentioned was that Thames is dedicated to promoting creativity among the faculty. It was about giving them space and freedom besides providing the necessary resources.
His passion and vision, his experiences and lessons learned are very relevant for all educators and those aspiring to work for quality education in Nepal.
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