A broken education system?

During December we have given our staff "the month off" in Kathmandu! Well, a month off the usual work, and instead given them a month of personal development in which they shared different pieces of training with each other, reported on projects, and studied/discussed educational reform programmes from around the world. Part of this was studying the work of Michael Fullan who I reported as a new "hero" in a previous article.

What you will read below is a summary of an email I have received today from Ladip-ma Kirati, a 23 year old fresh education graduate who cannot find a teaching job. She spent 3 months with us as an Intern before we appointed her as an Education Assistant on a 6 months contract. She has teaching experience, she has intelligence, she has drive/determination, she is a voracious learner. As you read it remember "she cannot find a teaching job" and we at NSA are very glad of it ..... because it means WE have got her instead of a school where the Principal dumbs everything down, has no concern for educational quality or the needs of the children. Read it, judge for yourself:

Recently I have been visiting schools in Kathmandu for the general inspection of their physical infrastructures and informing the Principals about our School Development Program. While doing this I kept in mind that our SDP and its strategies is more focused on the change of the whole school and education system by trying to awaken people of their different roles and their core responsibilities. Surprisingly I found that without understanding their own major responsibilities the Principals of the schools can never LEAD or create an environment of Quality Education at their schools. Which means they will NEVER find a way of change towards development.

During my school visits and observations I could vividly see the real classroom situations and school environment as well as perceiving how the Principal responds to the program when it describes how his/ her teachers' skills could be developed. By talking face to face with them, I could see that almost all of the Principal's biggest concern is regarding the improvement of the physical environment of the school. GOD knows why are they so interested with the this only and donors giving them money to do it.  

In general, Principals just seem to enjoy playing with their title and position as well as attending seminars and receiving financial allowances.  Most of them have  no feeling of citizenship towards their schools and the children.  In the schools I visited I could see very little accountability of the Principals towards the Children and their future. They look reluctant. I think they are very good at giving speeches and making remarks and promises but very bad at fulfilling them. They have a lot more things to do rather than participating in the program which would benefit their pupils, simply because they want personal benefits for themselves.

This month we have spent 3 weeks working on our personal development as a team and this included reading, presenting, discussing articles about educational reform by Michael Fullan and I would like to relate what I have written with Professor Fullan's articles on The Power of the Principal to motivate the masses, to drive the education system in a rightful manner which is in the right direction and creating a collaborative learning environment at school. 

In conclusion, only the power of our government and the Ministry of Education can help us meet our objective but we should not compromise with our standards and criteria of the School Development Programme just to collaborate with the corrupted government officials so that our program and investment won't fail like any other NGOs' and  INGOs' in our country.

What's that smell? It's bulls**t!

If anyone has read the work of Michael Fullan you will know that he is a firm advocate of transforming whole education systems in a systemic manner with intrinsic motivation via team learning being at the centre of any strategy. He also stresses the role of the school Principal or Head Teacher as being the primary leader for such change. (You can read this particular article here).

Here at Nepal Schools Aid we are certainly followers of Fullan's ideas, but completely exasperated by their complete ineffectiveness in Nepal. How could one of the world's leading educationalists be so wrong?

Here is one small example:

Just over a week ago in Kathmandu we visited 10 public primary schools to invite them to take part in our newly launched School Development Programme. We explained that teachers would get a series of training courses to help them develop and implement a complete child centred approach in their schools, that our staff would follow up all of the training by working with teachers to help them implement what they had learned, and that after 3 months implementation they would qualify for some significant material aid from us. And by the way, all for free. I'll repeat that, all for free.

The Principals all agreed to come to a meeting to be fully briefed and to register and due to take place on Tuesday. On the Sunday before, they were all phoned and given encouraging reminders.

Tuesday arrives, all is set. Noon arrives, nobody arrives! At 12.30 pm the first one arrives and apologises for being 30 min late. At 1.00pm a second Principal arrives, also apologising for being late. We subsequently discover that of the remaining 8, that 4 just forgot, 2 had a sudden emergency (!), one was on holiday, one had "to go out of the valley". Absolutely soul destroying for our staff who do all this for free, as one of them said "Bulshitting Principals, they can all go to hell!" Nicely put girls.

Now as I said above this is but one small example. There have been more, in fact too many to mention or write about. But the fact remains that Michael Fullan's article "The Power of The Principal" is spot on, the person in such a position has a lot of power to motivate and bring about much needed change in any education system. But the converse is true; they have the power to demotivate and destroy too. 

We have many examples of bullying Principals, absentee Principals, uneducated/untrained Principals, most of whom shouldn't be in charge of anything, and certainly NOT in charge of the education of 200 primary school children.

A New Hero? And at my age too!!

We all have heroes. When I was a young postgraduate in Chemistry my hero was Isaac Newton, a proverbial giant in his own right. He didn't need "shoulders to stand on" and transformed scientific thought with his experiments, his intellect, and his single mindedness. One of his most bizarre experiments has to have been sticking a needle into his eye to examine properties of light!

Later, when I was studying psychology, I had several heroes including Ed Schein, Peter Senge and David Nadler, all associated with organisation development generally, and the latter two with systems thinking specifically. Their thinking and approaches changed my career and my life; from narrowly focused development work into wider aspects of organisation development and culture change, from being employed to being self-employed, from being told what to do into advising others into how things could be better.

We all need heroes, people we can admire, look up to, learn from.

I have just found another; Michael Fullan is a professor emeritus at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. His website is http://www.michaelfullan.com/ and I encourage anyone seeking to understand how to transform education systems to visit it. The site is resource rich, here is someone who believes in sharing his thoughts on the widest scale; take a look at and download his articles on The Power of The Principal, Learning is The Work, Motivate The Masses, Professional Capital. The one that has interested me the most is Wrong Drivers For System Reform which seems to contain most if not all of what I presented to some senior staff at Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Kathmandu last April. Here are some extracts from what Fullan says:

"The key to system-wide success is to place educators and students at the centre. This means aligning the goals of reform and the intrinsic motivation of participants. So policies that foster strong intrinsic motivation across the whole system are required, as are strategies that develop

increased capability. Both strong motivation and enhanced skills on a large scale are required."

"Capacity building, group work and deep pedagogy, accelerated by technology, are processes that support all schools engaging in improvement of practice. Systemic means all elements of the system are interconnected and involved, day after day. Systemic is experiential not theoretical. Thus, the four wrong drivers are not ‘systemic’ by this definition."

"The solution involves using the four big effective drivers:"

1. The learning–instruction–assessment nexus.

2. Social capital to build the profession.

3. Pedagogy matches technology.

4. Systemic synergy.

"First, ensure the centrepiece of action is based on learning and instruction. Relentless development of ‘capacity building’ is the main agenda. Integral to this is commitment to the moral purpose of raising the bar and closing the gap for all students.

Second, use groups to accomplish a learning–instruction culture. Approach the solution as a social capital proposition to build the teaching profession. This requires building collaborative cultures within and across schools.

Third, power new pedagogical innovations with technology. They make education easier and more absorbing — learning and life become more seamless.

Fourth, the set of good drivers must comprise a coherent, interactive whole."

I sincerely hope that enough people are reading this in Nepal to at least give these issues some consideration. They are not just the words of an education expert, the sort of person too often appointed to advise on changing an education system. They are the words of someone who understands organisational change, systems thinking, and whole system change. As I have also consistently advised, using the wrong drivers and pulling the wrong levers will NOT lead to systemic change. But it COULD lead to systemic collapse!

New-NSA School Development Programme

NSA are pleased to announce the launch of our new School Development Programme (SDP) from this week. So what is it and why are we doing it?

In a single year we have run 19 Foundation courses for the professional development of almost 400 Primary School Teachers. We have worked with 58 schools, and an increasing number of schools in remote districts outside Kathmandu Valley. We have run about 20 advanced courses in Values For Children, Intermediate English, and Phonics. We have formed a partnership with a UK charity to help with logistics for teachers from 2 remote districts. We have at last persuaded the Ministry of Education to send observers onto our programmes, and this has begun this week.

And ........ we are exhausted! To have achieved this with only 3 full time Nepali staff in Kathmandu is remarkable, a testament to their energy, commitment, skill, dedication. 

One of the more practical downsides though is that we have not been able to manage closely enough the implementation of our training in the schools, and although some would say this is the responsibility of the school Principals, experience has shown us that about 50% of the wastage could have been predicted ...... poor school infrastructure, unmotivated teachers, poor performance management. None of which we at NSA can do anything about.

So, enter the SDP, a 3 months programme for groups of schools we will initially inspect, pre-qualify and register to go through Foundation Training, assessment and follow up, Advanced Training, assessment and follow up, recognition and reward programme. We will have about 8 schools going through the programme each quarter. The training hasn't changed, just our process of school selection, follow up work, and a reward element.

We have the first 8 schools ready to go after the December exams are completed and are running briefing meetings with them now. If you want to know more then contact us using the Form on our website.

Nepal Primary Education Forum: Discuss quality education in Nepal.

We are trying to raise the level of debate about the quality of education in Nepal's primary schools and have opened a forum on LinkedIn entitled Nepal Primary Education Forum. Our opening discussion begins with What is "quality education"? How is it delivered in primary schools? If you cannot define it ..... how can you deliver it, manage it or improve it. The School Sector Reform Plan depends on it!

We invite you to visit this discussion via the link and to join the group to add your voice and influence to developing the primary education sector. It doesn't matter whether you are based in Nepal or not, if you have an interest in Nepal and the education system your knowledge and experience could help.

Millennium Development Goals, School Sector Reform Plan: Who knows, who cares?

Compare the following statements:

1. "A key indicator and goal is to reduce class sizes from 41 to 34 (School Sector Reform Plan)"

2. "We have achieved 93.7% enrolment in primary schools (United Nations Development Report, Nepal 2010)"

3. "Nepal is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (Goal 2 Universal Primary Education, World Bank/IMF statement 2011)"

...... with these statements from Binod Ghimire writing in ekantipur today:

1. "A majority of the 642 public schools in the Valley have fewer students than the standard of 45 students per teachers set by the Ministry of Education"

2. "“Student enrollment in primary schools has decreased remarkably in the last five years and if the trend continues, many schools will have to be closed in the next five years”

3. "37 schools have closed in the Valley in the past two years due to poor enrolment"

They don't stack up do they? And suddenly we get quotes "explaining" the latter with statements such as:

"Education experts blame over-politicisation and “irresponsible teachers” for the deterioration of the quality of education in public schools"

“The situation is never going to improve unless teachers perform their duties responsibly,” (Mana Prasad Wagle, Educationist)

Well there's a surprise! But what would be an even bigger surprise would be some clarifying statements from ADB and DFID as major funders of education reform, together with some decisive action from the Nepalese government and INGO's such as ActionAid Nepal as major implementers!

Don't hold your breath.

Official: Quality Education needs quality teachers!

An excellent "report" on the UNESCO (Kathmandu) website today following World Teachers Day. Fully reprinted below with the vital words in bold and underlined. Thank goodness we agree, but is anybody in Nepal listening or acting?

"Today, on the occasion of World Teachers’ Day, we take a stand for all Nepali teachers.  They have a central role in shaping children’s lives.  They are essential for the cultural, social, economic and intellectual development of the country.  They are vital change agents in Nepal’s transformational process.

But only quality teachers can achieve quality education.  For this, there are three prerequisites:  Nepal's teachers should have adequate training. Nepal's teachers should have access to ongoing professional development. And the rights of Nepal's teachers should be protected.

Only teachers who are well trained, can provide quality education and promote the values of citizenship, peace and intercultural dialogue. Nepal has made clear progress in terms of teacher training. However not all teachers have had the opportunity to receive adequate training.  

All teachers need professional development throughout their careers, with continuous feedback between theory, practice, and research.  Life-long training, networks of learning teachers, action research, community relations, evaluation and accountability: all these are crucial factors for making teachers who can provide their students with the most productive and successful settings for learning.

The rights of   all teachers must be protected. The low status of some teachers and unequal working conditions infringe on their rights, while discouraging talented young people from joining and remaining in the teaching profession.

Investing in viable national policies and programmes for teacher training, recruitment and incentives will encourage teachers to remain in their posts and develop their professional skills.  At the same time development partners should also increase investment in well trained teachers.

Today, on World Teachers’ Day, we celebrate all Nepali teachers, especially female teachers, who serve in deprived and disadvantaged areas reaching out to the excluded, and bringing them the prospect of a better life through education. We particularly commend those who work in extremely challenging circumstances for their strong commitment to quality teaching.

In Nepal and elsewhere in the world, nothing will ever replace a good teacher. Nothing is more important than taking a stand for teachers." 

Hanaa Singer

UNICEF Representative

Education reports of two decades .... unimplemented!

The headline says it all, in the last 20 years no fewer than 11 separate reports for the development of Nepal's education system have been unimplemented.

 These include reports on Improvement of Education Policy (1991), Regulating The Private Education Sector (1999), Systematising The School Leaving Certificate (2000), Textbook Development (2010). There have been many others only partially implemented, the most recent being the School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP) 2009, where there are a variety of pieces of conflicting evidence as to it's spread and depth across the country.

The cost of producing these reports has been astronomic, in many cases funded by many aid programmes and development agencies. DFID alone contributed £££ millions to the SSRP.

One of the major factors in the non implementation is the frequent changes in government and subsequent changes in Education Ministers who want to revise policies etc to their own tunes! Of course such government changes affects other policies too including road building, hydro-power, and many others. But it beggars belief that something as fundamental as education with inputs to policy developments made by national and international experts should be subjected to political interference.

Who would be a teacher ........ or a child in Nepal?

You can read the full report here Republica

Sensational news: Quality education depends on the teachers not the building!

Another article from Nepal's My Republica newspaper caught my eye today, and for once (at last!) it's about something very positive about education. You can read the full article here Republica . Sharda Secondary School is in Sailung, about 70 miles east of Kathmandu. It has 350 students and has had 100% pass rate for the SLC exam (School Leaving Certificate) for the past 3 years!! Why? Simple: The quality of teachers and teaching, the dedication and hard work of teachers. As we have said for many years "you can deliver quality education under a tree if the teachers are trained, skilled and motivated".

Here are a few extracts from the article, your comments would be appreciated!

"The school building is yet to be completed. The windows and doors aren’t fixed in. The roof leaks when it rains. The students’ desks and benches are not very comfortable, either. In short, the physical infrastructure isn’t very good. 

But the school operates everyday. Its teachers are hard working and provide proper encouragement to the students. The villagers also praise the school and its teachers.

The level of education is also good. The SLC results achieved by Sharda School have made it the talk of the district. After producing results like those of expensive private schools, people have been praising the teachers of the school.

Kumar Tamang, member of the school’s managing committee, believes that it is due to the hard work of the teachers and the students that such good results have materialized.

Sharda Secondary School is now counted as one of the best schools in the district. Students are happy that their school is good. 7th grader Ritu Magar feels happy that her school is so popular. “I have many friends at school now. Our teachers teach us daily. They even take extra classes. Now everything is good,” says Ritu."

Primary-level reading culture: A farfetched dream for Nepal?

KATHMANDU, Sept 30:
A short article in today's My Republica newspaper in Kathmandu describes a "high level" seminar discussing the appalling standards of reading ability (literacy?) of children in the country's primary schools. as usual things like this make for very depressing reading and merely adds to our deepening sense of frustration at our inability to get the Ministry of Education to engage in a meaningful dialogue with us.
The full article can be found here My Republica  and some extracts are shown below:

The educational curriculum in the country has been anything but effective, with the idea of education being set as either passing the terminal and annual examinations or failing them. The idea of responsibility and achievement of a student, teacher or school is only limited to report cards.

The lack of classroom materials and uniform distribution of textbooks all over the country is another hindrance to making the education system justifiable. 

It is difficult for such schools to recognize the idea of reading culture amidst the lack of resources. It is no news that most of the teachers from primary to higher secondary level in these schools are not qualified for the job, either. Reading books for students in these schools is a dream too farfetched, especially when even textbooks aren’t easily available there.

How can we expect students to take up reading other than textbooks when the teachers aren’t resourceful enough? Where can they learn to pick up the habit of reading?

A little bit of "Magic"!

As a learning organisation here at NSA we are constantly challenging and developing ourselves in terms of our staff, our programmes and our processes. To highlight this, Sangita one of our Education Consultants from Kathmandu, is currently undergoing training in the UK involving formal courses and in-school work in Cumbria. As well as receiving the obvious personal development she is absorbing lots of child centred techniques, and knowledge related to Accelerated Maths, Assessment For Learning,and school measurement systems. The objective is for her to return to Nepal and create/apply the new knowledge.

One of the formal courses she is attending is on a technique called "Magical Spelling". The training is being run by Cricket Kemp at Haverigg Primary School and being attended by Sangita, Champa and a couple of teachers from the school.

At a simplistic level Magical Spelling is based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and children accessing word in their memory VISUALLY. So either by closing their eyes or "seeing inside their heads" they can see a word they already know and spell it. This is a gross oversimplification but it is a technique which definitely works and we intend to add it either as a separate workshop or added to our English courses in Kathmandu. Possibly, it may be applicable to learning Nepali, which means we would run it as a separate workshop, but we need more experience of the technique before we decide this.

You can learn more at www.magicalspellinglimited.com

Collaborate to survive!

"It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." - Charles Darwin

We have been trying for some time to find other UK charities working in the education sector in Nepal who would be interested in some form of collaboration. Synergy, two heads are better than one, and one plus one equals three are all phrases which spring to mind. Over the past 5 years we have had "refusals" or "problems" with charities working to provide meals to schools, or providing water, or health education, or libraries, or school buildings, and several more, none of who wanted to exchange services in terms of "you do this for our schools and we will do that for your schools"! What a complete waste of UK money and effort when all that was needed was a little bit of foresight and maybe some coordination by our national aid agency.

Then a couple of months ago we sent an email to the Nepal Schools Trust, a Scottish Charity building schools and helping with amenities in the Pragatinagar and Devchuli districts offering to provide them with some places on our teacher training courses in Kathmandu, at our expense. Why would we do this? Simple, because the Ministry of Education asked us to do it and we agreed, but only on the conditions that we would offer a limited number of places and that the organisation from these remote areas would be handled by "somebody else". So, today we have complete agreement on Nepal Schools Trust sending 32 teachers from 16 schools onto our 5 days Foundation course, they handle the administration and school follow up. Then, after evaluation, we can look at further collaboration probably based on cost sharing but freely using our expertise, all up front, no strings or hidden agendas.

This is a straight forward and powerful message to other agencies working to develop Nepal's education system: We at Nepal Schools Aid have the best and most extensive teacher training in Nepal. If you want to collaborate in spreading it ...... talk to us!

Article #4: Never mind the quality (of education), feel the width!

Writing this blog today I am reminded of a UK TV programme from the 1960's entitled "Never mind the quality feel the width". It was a comedy about two tailors in the East End of London making suits from inferior quality cloth, and when anyone ever questioned them about the material they would always say "never mind the quality, feel the width!"

Schools in Nepal can be like this, "never mind the quality of the teaching, look at how many more children now enrol for school"

Training programmes can be the same, "never mind the quality of the programme, it WAS 5 days long"!

Except our programmes are not like this, and we can prove it.

It's all about evaluation, a difficult thing to do in many cases where individuals attend for training as random individuals instead of being from an organisation such as a school where all of their colleagues attend too, and this is the scenario we have in Nepal. So, how do you evaluate a training programme?

Professional trainers use a technique based on the Kirkpatrick model or framework which is organised into four levels of measurement, all of equal importance, each building on the previous level.

1. Kirkpatrick Level 1 measures the "Reactions" of delegates to the training; not just did they like it, but giving a rating to a number of important factors such as the course content, the learning achieved, and the competence of the trainer. This is usually achieved by using a pro forma with rating scales at the end of each course.
2. Kirkpatrick Level 2 measures the "Knowledge gain" by the delegates at the end of the course; simplest way to do this is with a test of the delegates knowledge at the end of the course compared with their knowledge at the beginning using questions based on the course content.
3. Kirkpatrick Level 4 measures "Behaviour change" and now takes us into the realms of post course application; this is achieved by visiting the delegates place of work and observing them at work and looking for the application of specific techniques, skills and concepts from the course. Harder to do and time consuming, but the only way to assess value for money and the real effectiveness of the training to the individual.
4. Kirkpatrick Level 4 measures "Benefits & Results" to the organisation where the delegates work; we would do this in schools by measuring exam passes and completion rates for example over an elongated period of time. Once again more difficult since time must be allowed for the training to take effect.

So, there you have it, a professional trainer's evaluation kit. Are we using it? You bet we are!

At the beginning of the year we began with Kirkpatrick Level 1 by using a Reactions Questionnaire on all of our courses, and a results summary from around 150 teachers is shown below with all ratings on a scale of 1-5.

From April we began implementing Kirkpatrick Level 2 with a Knowledge Test on our Foundation course applied pre and post course and the results are also shown below.

Average Delegate Pre-Test Foundation Score: 6%

Average Delegate Post-Test Foundation Score 56%

Next, we have just formalised Kirkpatrick Level 3 by making systematic inspections of schools once 80% of teachers at any school have attended Foundation. The inspection lasts for about 2 hours and our Consultants use a 10 point checklist observing lessons on a number of teachers, looking for physical changes in the school environment and in discussion with the Principal. We will inspect around 20 schools this month and publish the results in August.

Finally, we will begin with Level Kirkpatrick Level 4 towards the end of this year when we amalgamate the process with some management training we plan for Head Teachers and Principals at each school we have worked with.

I'm sure you will agree that this is a thoroughly professional approach to the evaluation of our work and that the results so far are outstanding. All our Consultants are trained in this approach and have contributed to the development of materials at each level.

We are indebted to Leslie Allan, Managing Director, at Business Performance for freely sharing their materials with us to help everyone in Kathmandu learn the technique.

Article #3: Schools survey of SSRP implementation

Our readers know that for 2 years we have been critical of the content of the School Sector Reform Plan with it's over-emphasis on outputs and measurement, especially having taken a "rights based approach" to quality education. What this means essentially is that the policies focus on the rights of children to having an education and therefore increasing the means of access to every child. This is fine, we have never said otherwise, BUT what is missing is specific direction about what happens to those children once they begin attending school. By all means measure enrolment rates but the real measure is one of completion rates (the children who STAY in school to the end of each year) and ensuring that teaching practices and the environment are designed to enhance completion rates.

In our opinion, it is the lack of guidance and training for teachers on child centred methodologies that is most contributing to a reduction in completion rates, but we have recently been intrigued by claims from a variety of sources about the positive implementation of the SSRP and the provision of teacher training. So, since we are currently providing teacher training to 50 schools in the Kathmandu valley we decided to conduct a very simple survey amongst the Heads/Principals with questions that could be answered either "Yes or No". The questions and answers are shown below:

1. Have you heard of the SSRP? (4% NO)

2. Do you have a copy of the SSRP? (76% NO)

3. Have you had a briefing on it? (80% NO)

4. Have you had any management training in past 2 years? (72% NO)

5. Have your teachers had any official training in past 2 years? (4% NO)

6. Has your school been given any funding to purchase teacher training? (100% NO)

7. Has your school been given any funding to purchase classroom materials? (100% NO)

Now, these are very simple and direct questions and relate to some obvious issues. 

First, you cannot implement the requirements of the SSRP unless you have heard of it, have a copy, have had some briefing/training in it. Only 20 % meet this essential requirement.

Second, the SSRP clearly promises management training for Principals with many of the SSRP processes being dependent on managerial activities and skills. Only 28% meet this requirement.

Third, the SSRP stipulated that funding would be available for schools to purchase "on demand" teacher training and essential classroom materials. Precisely 0% have received any!

Remember, this is Kathmandu, the capital city, with a sample of 50 schools close to the nations resources and policy makers. These schools were not in the remote region of Humla to the West or Jhapa to the East!

I have just run out of things to write, form your own judgement in the light of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent so far on "implementing" this ..... document. Did I say "implementing"?

Article #2: Quality of education drops even further!

Although not strictly related directly to our focus on primary education, the SLC (school leaving certificate) results announced today in Kathmandu offer further evidence of an education system failing it's youth. 

The results show that only 47% of students taking the SLC actually passed! In numerical terms this means that out of the 419,047 students sitting the exams at the end of Year 10, that 221,419 have emerged from 10 years at school without the necessary certificate. Take a bow all you officials in the Ministry of Education, all you teachers, and all you politicians in the Constituent Assembly. 

Unbelievably however a statement from Mahasharm Sharma the Director General of the Department of Education tells us "this may have been caused by a lack of a send-up test (mock exam) prior to the actual exam which can be used to filter out students".

Mr Sharma, with the greatest respect here is a list of the factors which are probably causing the declining trend since the School Sector Reform Plan was launched in 2010 (68% pass rate in 2009, 64% pass rate in 2010, 55% pass rate in 2011, 47% pass rate in 2012):

1. Poorly trained teachers
2. Unmotivated teachers
3. Inappropriate pedagogies (teaching methods)
4. Inappropriate student assessment process
5. Inadequate classroom resources
6. No clear understanding of the meaning of or inputs required for "quality education"

If you want to read the full depressing story click here SLC Results 2012

Article #1: Universal Primary Education? Where's the quality?

This is the first in a short series of articles about the development of primary education in Nepal. The subsequent articles will include the results of a survey conducted amongst 50 primary schools in Kathmandu followed by some evaluation results of our Foundation programme of teacher training.

(And the reason for the photo will become clearer)

In August 2009 Nepal's government published their School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP), " ....... a long term strategic plan to achieve the goals and objectives of {Nepal} envisioned for the years 2009 to 2013/14. The plan contains the strategic interventions and estimated financial resources required for implementation".

The plan highlighted a number of Key Indicators and targets such as Pupil-Teacher ratios reducing from 41 to 34, Repetition Rates in Grade 1 reducing from 18% to 1%, Survival Rate at Grade 5 rising from 58% to 90%, Learning Achievement Rate (exam scores) at Grade 5 rising from53% to 80%, and a Literacy Rate rising from 69% to 90% in the age group 6-14 years.

The plan was then divided into specific sectors of education such as early childhood development, basic (primary) education, secondary education etc, as well as chapters on teacher professional development, financing, aid management, and a large appendix with a section entitled Quality Education.

Finally the Introduction section was quite specific about implementation of the plan with these words, " ...... the SSRP will be implemented in a phased manner ........ from 2009/10 onwards it will be implemented throughout the country focusing on the integration and consolidation of basic education (grades 1-8) and completing the process by 2012."

Obviously the sections of most interest to us are those concerned with Basic Education (grades 1-8, Teacher Professional Development, and Quality Education and our review and critique will amalgamate facts, opinions and suggestions across these three sections.

A great deal of the SSRP, quite rightly, is seeking to achieve Goal 2 of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, Universal Primary Education by 2015, and the SSRP takes a "rights based approach" strategically and tactically in it's content and process. For example much is written about the rights of all children, whether male or female, whether Bahun or Dalit, whether in Humla or Kathmandu, to receiving an education. Many key indicators are focused on measuring enrolment rates and survival rates, priority funding is targeted on females, Dalit's and other indigenous groups, and some emphasis is given to education in "mother tongue" across the curriculum and geographically. However we believe that taking a rights based approach exclusively will detract greatly from the whole issue of the QUALITY of education which could become overly focused on getting more children into school rather than by giving a focus to "what actually happens in the school"! In fact a somewhat bold prediction might be that the initial effort in increasing enrolment will be matched by a corresponding FALL in completion rates unless more attention is paid to pedagogies, classroom resources, teacher performance, and the curriculum. It has always been our assertion that you can provide a brilliant education under a tree, with no building, provided the teacher is well trained, enthusiastic, and caring, and there is a good curriculum!

Some of the key points written within and relevant to the SSRP sections we have mentioned are as follows:

1. Flexible learning approaches will be employed (p13)

2. Continuous assessment and remedial support systems will be implemented (p13)

3. The SSRP will make sure that all schools are equipped with minimum enabling conditions .....to include the learning environment ... involving availability of qualified and trained teachers, curriculum and textbook materials, teachers time on task and extra curricular activities. (p16)

4. The goal of teacher professional development is to ensure that all teachers have the knowledge and skills required to effectively facilitate students learning processes.( p37)

5. 4050 Head Teachers will have completed a certified training course (p40)

6. Demand driven and refresher teacher training will be developed and delivered for all teachers over a five year period. (p40)

7. School Management Committees will be provided with funding to buy training for teachers on a need basis. 50,000 teachers will be targeted. (p40)

8. 1-3 months School Management & Leadership training will be developed and implemented for 4050 head Teachers (p41)

Now, admittedly we have been selective with emphasising these points, but they are all actionable items and therefore one would think that after 2.5 years there would be evidence of implementation and of trending improvements. Well think again! In the last 6 months our teacher training programmes have brought us into contact with about 200 teachers in the capital city and most of them have never even heard of the SSRP, have no idea of the planned interventions and the possible effects on their careers, and have had little or no retraining other than the odd half day here and there from District Education Offices. Where training HAD occurred their view of it is unprintable!

In addition to these points for critique and any evaluation of their implementation, the whole of the SSRP section on Quality Education concerns us. We have lost count of how many times over the past 3 years we have asked various stakeholders to define EXACTLY what is meant by Quality Education, and most times we get either a waffled set of statements about results/outcomes such as passing grades and exams, or an embarrassed silence. Imagine yourself as a Head Teacher wanting to improve the quality of education in your school; how would you go about it? Well first, you would have to define it, you know the sort of questions such as where are we now, where do we want to get to? Only then can you follow up with "how are we going to get there?". In our desperation we have started to use the analogy of a Kukra ko masu curry (chicken curry) in our courses and meetings by asking people "what is involved in making a QUALITY chicken curry?", and the best answer we have heard from one Head Teacher was "How do I know, I know what it should taste like but I've no idea how to cook one!". And therein lies the crux of the matter; you can define OUTCOMES as much as you like, (the taste of a quality chicken curry), but if you don't know the inputs or process (ingredients and method) you have got NO chance of making one. There was a bit of laughter on that course as you can imagine, but then there was a dawning realisation that without knowing the ingredients for and method of attaining quality education then the school was doomed to failure. Needless to say, the 20 delegates were very focused for the next hour as we enlightened them on the simple ingredients and methods for developing Quality Education in their schools!

We realise that it is easy to criticise things like this, there are many hard working people who have developed the SSRP and who are undoubtedly doing their best to implement it and the last thing they need is criticism from outsiders. So, with this belief we tried to engage with Asian Development Bank (ADB) and with ActionAid! Nepal in early April. (ADB hold the international donor's financial aid and ActionAid! are this year's coordinators of all the INGO's involved in SSRP implementation).We had one meeting with ADB, particularly the new in-country director and a number of project staff to discuss our perceptions, our teacher training work, and to offer our team and programmes to widen SSRP implementation around Kathmandu. We had another meeting with the Education Coordinator of ActionAid! to also outline our work and to offer our services for training.

The outcome from ADB was their requesting us to approach and convince the Ministry Of Education to allow us to conduct an evaluation of their Continuous Assessment Programme, and the outcome from ActionAid! was no reply to my offer of further meetings to agree actions before our departure from Nepal in early May. Neither responses are especially helpful, the former because it is not our place (nor focus) to convince the MoE to let us run or manage an evaluation project, and the latter for obvious reasons. It seems bizarre to us that as an organisation providing what we believe to be the best teacher training at the very least ActionAid! would want to assess our worth by observing and evaluating our programmes. We must be missing something?

So where do we go from here?

The answer to that will be in the next article when I have the survey results.

Strategic Plan finalised

Since beginning our transformation into an academy for teacher training at the end of 2011 we have had a "murky view" of our direction and process, something that needed more meat on the skeleton, something created by all our stakeholders who wanted inclusion, something to be agreed.

Well, now we have it in 6 stages over 5 years, a linear sequence but with natural overlaps. Some stages can commence before others have finished, but there is a natural order to the journey.

Stage 1 can only be "Develop The Service" and this will continue for 4 years. Key training elements are our Foundation programme which is currently up and running as a 5 days course with 180 teachers already trained, and an Advanced programme of short workshops with English Literacy, Phonics, Values 4 Children already up and running, with Assessment 4 Learning, Accelerated Maths, Magical Spelling to be developed in the next 8-12 months. Next is the Consultancy service operating at 3 levels, an inspection of school's implementation of our methods, demonstrations of our techniques with teacher observations, and an advisory "visit" over 2-3 days working with the Principal and groups of teachers to develop a range of quality education practices. We are also developing an on-line resources service too.

Stage 2 is "Establish A Presence" to as wide a community as possible, mostly via referral marketing and using our influential network in Kathmandu. For example through simple marketing we have now got 50 schools registered with us for teacher training with enough teachers to fill our Foundation programme across 2012. Our presence is also enhanced because of our follow up work in schools which is supporting and helpful rather than inspecting and judgemental. 

Stage 3 is "Build A Team" of trainers and consultants who are productive and approachable as well as having a high level of expertise. We currently have a team of three but expecting them to meet all of our high standards from day 1 is totally unrealistic and we know it could take a full 12 months before we reach a level of satisfaction. But this is not a problem, they are all learning together, working hard and ........ doing their best. The feedback from the 50 Principals and 180 teachers trained so far tells us just that, and they are our most important stakeholders! Also a part of this stage is to build a team of UK experts and we are very fortunate to have Janice Brockbank as our educational advisor and John Cullen as our UK Consultant for Assessment Strategies, Resources Creation, and Accelerated Maths Teaching.

Half way through our first year and all three stages 1-3 are now running with an intensive period of team learning taking place to deliver the Foundation programme brilliantly and to fully establish our presence in Kathmandu as a first class teacher training organisation.

Stage 4 is "Build A Reputation" and you might be thinking "why isn't this sooner?". Well, we only have one goal with this stage ...... and that is to have the reputation of being the best teacher training organisation in Nepal. This will not occur just because we run good courses, it will only happen if we can demonstrate that the quality of education increases in schools who have been trained by us, that we are respectful and approachable by all, and that the methods and techniques we use are being absorbed into the Nepalese education system. We expect to see this occurring from late year 2 onwards and we will launch a RAISE process and programme to help schools "Raise Achievement and Implementation in Schools Evaluation".

Stage 5 is "Build A Business" and this does NOT mean that we are trying to create a profit making organisation in Nepal. Far from it, we are trying to achieve the ultimate in sustainability by running down the dependence on UK funding and UK expertise. In essence we want to create an organisation in Nepal which is "not for profit" in which private schools pay for the training and consulting, with businesses and government funding development projects, and where all income arises in Nepal and is spent in Nepal to pay for the development of government and community schools. A big task, and one frequently misunderstood by our larger donors who see it as "walking away without developing an infrastructure of management etc". But this is a gross assumption and an incorrect one too!

Stage 6 is "Strategic Withdrawal" and should be a stage that calms the nerves of those who think that NSA gets dumped in 2016! This is a full year of ensuring service stability, ensuring a steady income stream, developing and underpinning a management structure etc. However this is a long way off and it would be impossible at this time to say where the income will come from, who will be part of the management structure, what premises will we have, what UK support will be needed! Plenty of time for that to be developed by our Trustees, UK advisors and Kathmandu team.

A reduction in quality education?

A couple of days ago I was listening to the radio in my car and heard of a report just published about a survey conducted regarding the Millennium Development Goal related to the provision of Universal Primary Education. The goal is to reach 100% of children in primary education by 2015 and many countries, including Nepal, have signed up to this and created strategies and processes to achieve it. In the case of Nepal their main strategy is incorporated into their School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP), a document we have openly criticised for it's emphasis on desired outcomes, various standards and targets, rather than inputs into things like teacher capability, teacher development, pedagogies etc. 

The radio report was about a study conducted in three African countries and the central theme was that using vast sums of money to build more schools and create opportunities for more children was having a negative effect on the overall quality of education received by the children who were entering schools, being taught by untrained or low standard teachers then dropping out! The report was acknowledged by Andrew Mitchell, the UK's Minister of Overseas Development.

Now, this is something we have been saying for 5 years, and something we back up with our own investment into teacher training. Forget the new buildings, use what you have got, there is plenty of space in Nepal for more children. The national obligation is foremost to give the children a high standard and quality of education, something that will attract all the "missing children" to turn up and to see it through to the end. Is this so difficult to understand?

If anyone can find a link to the actual report and send it to me I would be very grateful.

Nepal on the brink?

It is never our intention to get involved in political matters in Nepal nor to pass comment about national issues or events, unless they are within the sphere of education. However we do try to keep our readers up to date occasionally in the light of the overall "state of the nation" and how this might affect our work.

As most Nepal-Watchers will know this is a very important month for the country since in a few days the final-final deadline is reached to agree a new constitution since the conclusion of the Maoist war and the removal of the monarchy. They have been working on it for 4 years! Each time a deadline has been reached the politicians have simply extended it, until the Supreme Court said "no more". Within this constitution there has to be some agreement about how Nepal will be divided into or along federal lines and so far various groups and parties have proposed 6, 7, 10, and 14 different states divided on either geographic, or ethnic lines, or both. And, of course, nobody is satisfied, and this has led to a bombing in Janakpur, the shutdown of the far Western region for 8 days, strikes and road blockages in various parts of the country by each group claiming it's rights. Schools have been closed in Kathmandu for 4 days out of the last 7.

As if all this wasn't enough, two days ago the Kathmandu police began a purge on squatter camps along various river banks involving the forcible destruction of the camps with bulldozers. Both sides claim that inadequate warning or housing provision were/have been made and the report below is reprinted verbatim from Human Rights Watch.

"On May 8, 2012, Kathmandu municipality officials and the Armed Police Force began forcibly evicting residents of settlements along the Bagmati River to make way for a planned urban development project, leaving many of the evicted homeless and destitute. Local nongovernmental organizations report that the demolitions so far have destroyed 257 homes and left 844 people homeless, including 401 children. A primary school that 200 children attended was also destroyed. Authorities plan to evict an estimated 12,000 people in Kathmandu for the planned project.

“If this first round of evictions is any indication, the government of Nepal has no intention to respect the rights of the people living in the settlements,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government has obligations – at a minimum – to respect due procedure, to inform people affected well in advance, and to ensure availability of alternative housing with basic infrastructure and services.”

The evictions were not carried out in compliance with applicable due process standards, and the government has not provided compensation or social services to those affected, including children, Human Rights Watch said.  

According to credible reports from local groups, the government has failed to ensure that alternative housing arrangements are adequate and sustainable. A group working with children and schools in just one of the settlements reported that 25 families with children slept outside next to their razed homes for the two nights following the demolition. Another group has allowed 50 families to sleep on the floor in their nearby office. Families report they fear violence and theft, and that they have nowhere to go and nowhere to send their children to school. 

In January, Human Rights Watch wrote to the government of Nepal, the government’s High Powered Committee for Integrated Development of the Bagmati Civilization, and the Task Force on Forced Evictions, outlining the international standards that apply to forced evictions. 

The Bagmati Action Plan for the redevelopment project reports that more than 4,000 squatters live along the Bagmati River. Squatters rights groups say that the figure is even higher and point to the High Powered Committee’s estimate of 10,500 people over 76 hectares of riverside land. According to research by Lumanti, an urban poverty nongovernmental group in Kathmandu, 41 percent of the people in the city’s squatter settlements are under age 19.

Properly planned urban planning and environmental sustainability projects can advance development and promote social and economic rights, Human Rights Watch said. But such developments should comply with Nepal’s obligations under international law, respect the rights of the individuals and communities concerned, and conform to the best international practices. 

The government of Nepal should comply with the UN-developed specific standards when embarking on development-based evictions, Human Rights Watch said. Theseinclude those set out by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in interpreting the right to adequate housing under that covenant, to which Nepal is a party and which it is legally bound to respect. 

Based on these standards, evictions should never leave people homeless or vulnerable to the violation of human rights. Evictions should never occur during the school year or at times when the displacement of families will interrupt children’s education. And evictions should not take place in bad weather. It is pre-monsoon season in Nepal, and the evicted homeless families are left without any shelter during the rains. 

“The need for urban development and environmental protection is no excuse for disrespecting and disregarding people’s basic rights,” Adams said. “Promotion of the public good and respect for human rights are, and should always be, mutually compatible.”

Nepal School Of The Month Award kicks off.

This month sees the launch of our "school of the month" award in which we donate 1000 exercise books to the school that is trying hardest to implement the tools and techniques learned on our Foundation Course. For April we chose Siddi Mangal school in the village of Siddipur on the outskirts of Kathmandu beyond Lalitpur. This is a rural community with families and culture dominated by farming and brick factories.

Two weeks ago we took some representatives from one of our institutional donors to visit the school and there was no doubt that the Head Teacher and her staff were trying hard to improve the quality of education in the school in a variety of ways. They deserve their award and the picture shows Babita, our Senior Education Consultant, congratulating Indira the school Head Teacher at our offices in Ekhalaku, Patan.

Our first books on improving quality education

There are some ideas which come from other people which are just too good to be ignored or not copied. One such example is the P4C Pocketbook written by Jason Buckley (The Philosophy Man) available from Amazon or via his website at www.thephilosophyman.com 

It is so good we have "copied" the style and format of the booklet in writing two of our own to supplement the teacher training we offer in Kathmandu. The first of these, Values For Children, is a teachers guide to applying the P4C technique to children learning about values, and also encourages a school to create its own set of values representing citizenship of the school. Naturally, although the booklet is in English it is written specifically for a Nepalese audience and supports what we cover on our courses. The second booklet, Facilitation Technique For Child Centred Learning also is for Nepali teachers and supports the learning on our Foundation course. It describes all the essential items of preparation (lesson planning) as well as three steps to facilitating a child centred lesson; 1.Encourage participation, 2.Experience the topic, 3.Review the learning. The booklets are distributed on all of our free courses in Kathmandu.

A miscarriage of support when most needed?

The final day of Foundation 7 was a few minutes from starting when the door opened and in walked a teacher and a very small child. We were all speechless for a few moments for two reasons; firstly that someone had turned up and had brought their 5 year old child with them for the day; and secondly that the previous day we had been concerned that this female teacher had not arrived and that our enquiries had discovered that the lady had suffered a miscarriage!

And now, here she was arriving for the last day of the course, what to do!

We sat her down and gently asked what had happened and why was she here. Overall what she told is is truly shocking; she had suffered a miscarriage but really wanted to complete the course so she could get a certificate, she asked her mother in law to look after her 5 year old son so she could come on the course, but her mother in law refused! So, undeterred she struggled in to the course and brought her son with her to ask if he could stay while she learned, all very tearful too!

(Our solution was to say that she could go home and rest, look after her son for the day, then return on the next Foundation course in a couple of weeks time for the last 2 days to complete it and get her certificate)

This episode unfortunately shows how some women are often treated in Nepal, though there are far worse stories than this from a male dominated society. In the eyes of the mother in law this poor woman has been downgraded because of the miscarriage and is virtually persona-non-grata. That's why her mother in law wouldn't offer any help or support. The least we can do is to publicise what happened.

Quality education comes to Jhapa district

Not too long ago we were asked by Nepal's Ministry of Education to spread our teacher training to remote village areas, a task that we would find absolutely impossible due to our young staff being based in Kathmandu, a clear logistical issue of not being able to do any follow up work with schools, and a donor condition of funding that our work is concentrated in the capital city.

However we have now started to try a small experiment by inviting 2 teachers from any remote village school to attend each Foundation course which they must then take back and cascade to other teachers.

The first two teachers from Noble English School, Jhapa District in far Eastern Nepal have just completed the course and one of them has written some notes for me:

"My name is Kripa Regmi and I am an English teacher in nursery and lower kindergarten. Our school is located in Bistamode, it is very small and up to class 5. We have about 100 students, mostly the children of labourers from tea plantations. Their economic condition is very bad.

Our Principal manages the school on his own without any government support.

I have attended the NSA Foundation course with my friend Gita Sharma Regmi because we both wanted good teacher training. Our Principal found the training on the internet and asked for help.

I have learned many good teaching skills from the course, especially about child centred education which we have never heard of before. I really liked it because it is activity based learning, and we learn about values, quality education and also physical and psychological things.

We will try our best to implement this in our school and we are very thankful to NSA and Brian sir for helping us"

Major donor sees quality education in Kathmandu

This week one of our major institutional donors from the UK has spent two days in Kathmandu evaluating our work with a view to extending our partnership into the future. We had arranged for them to observe a number of sessions on our Foundation course which was running at the time, as well as visits to three different schools.

Course observations focused on the facilitation technique we use around Values For Children and they watched an early session where teachers were being taught the process by our Senior Consultant, Babita, and then followed this up a day later observing the teachers practising running a session themselves.

Kalpana, Principal of Min Nath School displays the school values poster.

We visited three schools, all in different environments and contexts. Siddi Mangal school is in the village of Siddipur and is therefore full of children from farms and rural homes. Min Nath school is a city centre school and quite different in the parent and children backgrounds. Lalit Kalyan school is also city based, but unlike the other two has been working with us for 2 years. All three schools demonstrated considerable effort to implement a more child centred approach to their lessons and there was evidence of this in the classes we observed, resources being used, posters on the walls and the attitudes of the Head Teachers.

At the end of the second day our guests visited our new premises and experienced "the seating arrangements" in our Nepali style training room!

Advanced course programme launched in Kathmandu

At last after a wave of short one day strikes we have been able to launch our programme of Advanced courses. These are more skills based than our Foundation course and currently cover three topics, English Intermediate (Literacy), English Early Learners (Phonics), and Values For Children (V4C). 

To qualify teachers must have completed our Foundation Course and show signs of implementing what they learned from it.

At the end of last week we completed our first two days English Literacy Teaching course for a group of English teachers who learned to use a range of active techniques including story telling, word games, memory games, making stories from pictures etc. As expected however the standard of English amongst the teachers themselves is very low and we must seriously question the value of this course.

Today we have started our three days Phonics Course for a group of Nursery and Class 1 teachers. This course is based around the UK's Letters & Sounds syllabus organised into a series of Phases (1-6) in which children are taught sounds, phonemes and graphemes. We realise that we cannot make experts of these teachers in three days, but we CAN give them the basics and encourage them to study and practice more.