Overview of the program:

The Bachelor in Community Development (BCD) is a four-year undergraduate program designed to produce leaders and champions for community development and social change in the country. This is a unique professional program designed to cater human resources required for community development through self entrepreneurship and skilled professionals to work with different sections of the society such as environment, health, development, equity, women, children, youth, elderly, dalits

, people with disabilities, and communities affected by various transformations. The curriculum covers a wide range of social issues, inter alia, development, environment, economy, equity, health, population, conflict, poverty, and disaster. The program creates a vibrant teaching-learning environment through a mixture of lectures, class discussions, student presentations, research activities, interaction with community development champions, leaders, activists through guest lectures, workshops, and seminars along with action oriented project works, field trips, case study analysis, and urban and rural internships with government and non-governmental organizations. On completion of this four-year BCD program, graduates will have developed competencies in theoretical, practical and analytical skills to work effectively with a range of communities and will be capable of intervening at different levels of community development, from planning and development of programs, service delivery activities, to organizing, and leading people to bring about policy and praxis for social change.Objectives of the program:

• Develop an understanding of community development in rural, urban, local, national, regional and global contexts;
• Evaluate and design community development approaches in both international and local contexts;
• Build critical skills in core elements of community development;
• Build skills to critically analyze core elements of current development practices and sustainable development issues in community development;
• Enhance effective communication, advocacy and community organizing skills working with individuals, families and communities for social change;
• Prepare human resources to respond to the current needs and challenges in both rural and urban communities;
• Develop and implement innovative community development interventions, and government policies and programs of community development;
• Prepare trained and skilled human resources to work with development agencies, local, regional and national governments, and for developing community social enterprises and innovations.

 Teaching Methodology:

Our teaching pedagogy is student centered and we believe in learning by doing. Classes will include group and individual works, discussions, problem solving, presentations, workshops, seminars, and other techniques. The sessions will be interactive to discuss the topic under study in depth and facilitated by highly qualified faculty members. Students are required to actively participate in class. According to the need of the course, there will be field trips, internship, action oriented project works, and interaction with development workers, activists, and policy makers and guest lectures. Assignments, practical classes and consultation hours are the most integral part of the program. Regular feedback will be provided to students on their progress.

Program Highlights & Course Structure:

The BCD provides 126 credits hour courses in total. The courses cover nine fundamental themes inclusive of ‘community issues’, ‘environment’, ‘understanding community social behavior’, ‘community economics’, ‘community health’, ‘community people and their behavior’, ‘language skills’, and ‘computer and advanced research skills’. Each subject is of 3 credits unless specifically mentioned. Field placements are the integral components of the program.  Students participate in field trips, rural camps, relief works and are placed at community, and government organizations for the first hand experience of theory learnt in the classroom in praxis. In the final year, students are required to complete 3 months rural (urban) internship and submit a detailed academic report as a partial fulfillment of the degree. In addition to the courses noted in the table below, the program may substitute a few these courses with the courses kept in the ‘additional’ table for innovation from time to time as and when it is deemed required.

Admission Criteria:

Applicants must have 

10+2 or equivalent degree in any discipline from a recognized institution with minimum aggregate of 45 percent or 2.0 CGPAApplicants who have passed Class XI and are waiting for Class XII results can also apply provision admission.However, they will have to produce the proof of having passed the exam within 15 days of publication of the result for formal registration. Evaluation Criteria:

The performance of students in a course is evaluated in two stages, internally by the faculty member and externally by the Office of the Controller of Examinations through end-semester exams. Fifty percent weightage is assigned to the external end semester examinations and remaining 50 percent is assigned to the internal assessments. In order to successfully complete a course, students are required to obtain a minimum of 40 percent marks in both of the components independently. Students will have to achieve a minimum of 80 percent attendance. Students who do not achieve this will be considered ‘Not Qualified’ and will not be allowed to appear in the external end-semester examinations. Any student who fails to secure 50 percent of the total credits offered in a semester will have to drop out from the semester.

Students will be evaluated on four-point scale by the following letter grades:

The combined total marks obtained by the student in in-semester assessment and the end-semester examination will be converted in to letter grades as follows:

Career Prospects:

BCD graduates can find employment in a wide range of roles in National, Provincial and Local Government Bodies of Nepal, Foreign Governments, International Organizations, Private Sector, Community Organizations, and Charitable Organizations in the capacity of community development officer, project coordinator, liaison officer, advocacy campaigner, national and international aid worker, researcher and policy officer along with a wide range of opportunities for self-employment and entrepreneurship. They can also opt to pursue higher degrees in Nepal or abroad.