A 2025 case study published in Frontiers in Education examines how a Whole School Intervention (WSI) approach contributed to school improvement in a private school in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. The research was conducted by scholars from Kathmandu University’s School of Education (Lalitpur) and is grounded in complex adaptive systems theory, treating schools as dynamic systems shaped by interacting parts rather than isolated components.
The study focuses on a school serving around 400 students and employing 40 staff (25 teaching and 15 non‑teaching). The school operated on leased land with limited space, which created challenges in creating a conducive learning environment and in running a full range of curricular and extracurricular activities.
A school‑wide intervention, carried out in phases
WSI is described in the study as a school improvement approach that engages the whole school community to address multiple areas of school functioning. In this case, researchers used a qualitative case study methodology, drawing on participatory needs analysis, in‑depth interviews, focus group discussions, and video recordings to understand the school context and track transformation over a process implemented in four phases.
As part of strengthening the conditions for change, the school also introduced contextual policy adjustments to support teachers’ planning and collaboration time, including extending working hours from 9:30-3:30 to 9:00-5:00 to make space for curriculum planning, preparation of instructional materials, and staff ‘sharing circles’.
Leadership, culture and teaching practice
A central finding of the study is that the whole‑school intervention helped shift leadership from traditional authoritative approaches toward distributed, democratic and participatory practices.
The intervention also supported teacher professional development, which the authors link to improvements in teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and skills. Alongside this, the study reports that WSI nurtured a positive school culture – an important condition for sustaining changes in teaching and learning.
Improved learner outcomes and a more enabling environment
The authors report that improvements in teaching practice and school culture contributed to enhanced student learning outcomes. They also note the collective role of school stakeholders in maintaining a conducive learning environment, citing school gardening initiatives as one example of school-wide efforts that supported the learning environment and culture.
Why this matters for whole‑school development
The study concludes that whole‑school improvement is more likely to be sustained when schools focus on empowering participation and building a long‑term shared vision across the school community. In this Nepalese case, change was not positioned as a single programme component, but as a school‑wide process involving leadership, teacher learning, culture and environment – working together as an integrated system.
