NPRC Journal of Multidisciplinary Research.

Background: Teacher agency is essential to educational transformation, yet teacher development in Nepal often relies on standardized training approaches that emphasize prescribed methods rather than critical reflection, contextual experimentation, and collaborative learning. Objectives: This study explores how teachers develop and exercise agency through Critical–Creative Pedagogy (CCP) and participatory action research in two Nepali public-school contexts. Methods: Using a participatory action research approach, the study examined two contexts: a cross-school initiative involving 11 teachers from eight public schools in Helambu and a school-based initiative involving 30 teachers at Janata Secondary School in Bardibas. Data were generated over nine months through workshop interactions, teacher reflections, lesson plans, classroom observations, reflective dialogues, and informal conversations with students. The analysis examined how reflection, dialogue, classroom experimentation, and collective professional learning contributed to the development of teacher agency. Results: The findings indicate that teacher agency developed through iterative cycles of reflection, action, observation, dialogue, and re-reflection rather than through standardized training alone. Teachers began questioning textbook-centred and examination-driven practices and experimenting with learning activities grounded in students’ experiences and local contexts. Contextual adaptation and engagement with the wider school community, including school management committees and parents, emerged as important dimensions of pedagogical change. The Bardibas initiative appeared to foster stronger shared reflection, mutual support, and continuity of pedagogical change than the cross-school arrangement in Helambu. Conclusion: Teacher agency is a relational and context-dependent process that develops through critical reflection, pedagogical experimentation, and collaborative learning. Sustaining educational transformation requires professional learning opportunities that connect teachers’ agency with local knowledge, school-level collaboration, and community engagement. Novelty: By examining participatory action research across two distinct school contexts, this study highlights how the institutional setting of teacher collaboration may shape opportunities for collective reflection, mutual support, and sustained pedagogical change. It also foregrounds the importance of connecting teacher learning with school and community contexts in efforts to transform classroom practice.

Background: Job instability within teachers in Nepal's private schools is a persistent matter, however its combined impacts on teaching performance and organizational trust remain under investigated. In this research, "permanent" denotes benefit-eligible status (teachers who get a provident fund, social security fund, insurance allowance, and government-standard paid leave after a certain qualifying period) whereas "temporary or contract-based" denotes teachers are deprived of one or more of these advantages. Objectives: This research investigates (i) the impact of job stability type on teaching performance and workplace effectiveness, (ii) the relationship between organizational job-security assist and organizational trust, and (iii) the joint predictive effect of both independent variables, along with quality of communication and collaboration tested as a possible moderator. Methods: A quantitative comparative-correlational approach was applied. Data were gathered from 219 teachers in private schools of Kathmandu Valley via a structured questionnaire utilizing a 5-point Likert scale. Item-level descriptives applied median and IQR; construct-level composites were examined applying independent-samples *t*-test, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression in SPSS. Job status was defined by availability of organizational benefits: permanent (benefit-eligible) teachers get provident fund, social security fund contributions, insurance allowance, and government-standard paid leave after a qualifying period, whereas contract-based teachers are deprived of. Results: Permanent teachers reported substantially higher teaching performance (M difference = 0.254, *p* = .036) and organizational trust (M difference = 0.269, *p* = .027) than temporary teachers. Multiple regression displayed that perceived employment stability (β = .560, *p* < .001) and institutional job-security support (β = .352, *p* < .001) combinely predicted teaching performance, R² = .793, F(2, 216) = 414.87, *p* < .001. For organizational trust, both predictors were additionally significant (β = .443 and .510, both *p* < .001), R² = .863, F(2, 216) = 677.95, *p* < .001. Moderation by communication quality was not assisted (all four interactions non-significant; *p* > .05). EFA extracted two factors justifying 73.75% of variance; Harman's test exhibited 54.64% on the first factor, just above the 50% threshold. Conclusion: Both perceived employment stability and institutional job-security assist independently and collectively predict teaching performance and organizational trust. Permanent employment is connected with higher results. Moderation by communication quality was not assisted. Novelty: This is within the first research to integrate employment stability type and institutional job-security assist in collectively predicting both teaching performance and organizational trust in Nepal's private school field, applying ordinal-appropriate item-level descriptives and composite-level parametric analysis.