Bal Bigyan becomes “child centred”

Last April we began our teacher development programme in Kathmandu which aims to increase the “child centredness” of teaching in each of our seven supported schools. As part of this programme we appointed three paid Tutors to work as almost full time teachers in a school AND to work at developing skills in teachers around all seven schools. Two of these Tutors, Babita and Bashu work at the Bal Bigyan school in Patan teaching English and maths/Science respectively. Each month they write a report for us to outline their own learning, the development of others, and developments in their school.

Looking back over the last couple of months reports it is clear that some changes are occurring at Bal Bigyan slowly but surely.

When they write about their personal learning we see phrases like “this month I have been learning about child friendly classrooms and the different factors affecting it”, “the most important thing I have learned this month is in the area of emotional development”, “this month my learning has focused on language development”. Now don’t forget, this is coming from teachers who work in an environment which we in Western Europe would describe as Dickensian and Victorian, so major personal steps are being made here.

Next, when you read about the personal change these young Tutors are going through you come across statements like “I now speak English in the classroom all the time”, “I realise that my strict actions and hard rules were suppressing creativity”, “I have tried hard to become more tolerant and to be more questioning in class”, you realise again the personal efforts being made.

Next, we read about how they are using these skills to develop others and their school overall such as leading discussions about “generic/grade teaching instead of subject teaching”, “encouraging everyone to create child friendly classrooms”, “apply multiple intelligences to all their lessons”.

We are very proud of and encouraged by the efforts of Babita and Bashu, they have applied themselves well to personal learning as well as taking responsibility for development of their colleagues and their school. Nepal as a nation needs more teachers like them, and so do we at Nepal Schools Aid.