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Policy brief: version control in school computing

To: Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), Sanothimi, Bhaktapur (info@moecdc.gov.np, +977-1-6634373 per its website) · National curriculum revision task force, AI & ICT thematic committee. CDC says it collects suggestions on its website in a set format (Radio Nepal, 25 Jun 2026); no deadline or direct contact was published. The task force was formed in April 2026 with a six-month reporting window (Nepal News, 20 May 2026), so the window to influence the draft is now. From: Ram Chandra Giri, rcgiri.physics@gmail.com Date: October 2026

1. The problem

School computing in Nepal teaches programming and databases (Python and MySQL in the Class 10 textbook; Python, PHP/MySQL and OOP in Grades 11–12), but nowhere that we found does it teach how people work on the same files together safely. Students keep copies like final_final_v3, lose work, and cannot see who changed what.

The Grade 11–12 Computer Science curriculum (subject code 4281) already points this way: it suggests a group web project "using GitHub for version control", has a unit on software development models (Waterfall, Agile with Scrum and XP) and a group software project of at most four students (Unit 8). It gives no lessons on version control itself, so teachers have nothing to teach it from. We read the Grade 11–12 curriculum and the Class 10 textbook; we could not find the Grade 8 or Grade 9 computer syllabus.

2. International precedent

The US CSTA K-12 standards include team roles with collaborative tools (3A-AP-22, grades 9–10) and version control in a group project (3B-AP-20, grades 11–12) (as summarised on csteachers.org).

3. What we propose

An open supplementary chapter + project kit, Grades 8–12, not a new subject: Time Machine for My Work (G8) → Branch and Share (G9) → Team Workflows (G10) → Open-Source Contributor (G11) → Engineering with Git (G12).

4. Why it is feasible

  • Offline-first: four delivery tiers (no computer, offline PCs, school LAN server, internet). A Grade 8 chapter works with paper cards.
  • Open: CC BY 4.0 content, MIT code, only open-source tools and open data.
  • Teacher-ready: every module has a teacher guide; a 3-hour teacher training outline exists.
  • Mapped, re-mappable: alignment/cdc-ncf2076.yml maps modules to the CDC units we could read (Class 10 Units 2 and 4; Grade 11–12 Units 4, 5, 6 and 7, and Grade 12 Units 7 and 8). Grades 8–9 are marked unverified. It can be re-mapped to whatever framework emerges from the revision.
  • Privacy-safe: Grade 8 stays local (learners may be under 13; GitHub requires 13+); no student data in public repos.

5. Evidence so far

A prototype exists (Grade 8 full, Grades 9–12 core lessons). No classroom pilot has been run yet; the pilot protocol is in research/pilot-protocol.md. We will share results as soon as they exist.

6. The ask

  1. Accept the repo as a supplementary teacher resource, and name a contact at CDC for alignment review.
  2. Support a pilot in 3–5 schools (urban, LAN, rural single-PC).
  3. Consider including version control and collaboration as a project component in the revised computer curriculum.

Repository: https://github.com/rcgiri-physics/git-for-schools · Site: https://rcgiri-physics.github.io/git-for-schools/ · Maintainer: Ram Chandra Giri, rcgiri.physics@gmail.com · Licence: CC BY 4.0 / MIT.

Nepali version: docs/ne/cdc-brief.md (draft, needs native review).