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.

Welcome to Nepal!

Getting through Kathmandu airport within 40 min is one hell of an achievement and to be sitting in our taxi after passing through immigration in record time as well as our baggage being first to arrive it looked like Nepal had taken a turn for the better.

As our plane left Delhi for it's one hour flight to Kathmandu the excitement from the mass of tourists making their first visit was obvious. Sitting next to us was a young group of doctors from the UK, newly qualified and coming to work at the Kathmandu teaching hospital for a month as volunteers. Behind us was a newly married couple also visiting for the first time who had booked an adventure holiday honeymoon beginning with a few days at the Last Resort on the Bhoti Khosi river for whitewater rafting, kayaking and bunjee jumping!

Our own excitement was unusually high for regular visitors; tomorrow was to see the launch of our new Advanced Programme of teacher training and later in the month an "inspection visit" from our major financial partner.

Two hours later and the euphoria from all parties hit rock bottom with the news that Monday another bandh (strike) had been called by the Jana Morcha political group protesting about the government's proposals for the organisation of new federal states! Such a bandh means road blocks and no vehicular movement rigorously enforced by all violent means possible, so, nobody moves.

And the meaning of all this? Well the newly weds cannot set off for the Last Resort and have lost a day's rafting, the volunteer doctors have lost their day touring the sites of Kathmandu before a short trek then the start of their volunteer work.

And of course NSA cancels it's new programme launch and the conference hotel loses a day's business fee from our booking.

Welcome to Nepal!

Appreciation from Nepal's Ministry of Education

After yesterdays posting about the rising trend of quality education at Lalit Kalyan school in Lalitpur, we received the appreciative email below from one of the Under-Secretaries at the Ministry of Education in Kathmandu. Worth its weight in gold, literally, as a motivator of staff, teachers and ....... donors.

"Thank you very much for sharing a wonderful achievement. On behalf of the Ministry of Education, I appreciate the efforts you and your team have made for our schools in Nepal. I hope this process will be continued in the days to come. 

With best regards

Mukunda M Khanal

Under Secretary

Ministry of Education, Nepal"

Evidence of improving Quality Education

We have been beating the drum about quality education and its definition for some time now and about how important it is BEFORE any claims can be made about improvements. As regular readers will know we have repeatedly castigated educationalists and politicians in Nepal for littering their "speak" with the words "quality education" but never being able to define it or to justify claims of improvement.

Such a stance may be OK for governments who get massive grants of overseas aid, but as a UK charity we are answerable to our donors who expect value for money and who, quite simply, would stop donating unless we could prove a positive impact from our work.

So here goes. Take a look at the numbers below before we explain them:

(MALS) (1)68  (2)68  (3)75  (4)75

(QEQ)    (1)68  (2)74  (3)83  (4)83

MALS (Myself As A Learner Score) is a self perception inventory of 20 questions completed by children related to themselves as learners. Higher scores will indicate a higher positive self image and greater confidence in personal ability to learn. It is a proprietary test developed by Professor Burdon at Exeter University, UK.

QEQ (Quality Education Questionnaire) is also a self perception inventory of 20 questions completed by children related to THEIR view of a number of aspects at their school, specifically the Curriculum, Teacher Style, Assessment, Values & Ethical environment. Higher scores will indicate a more positive impression of teachers and the school. It is a private test developed by psychologists within NSA.

The scores above show the results of the same group of children in Classes 3,4,5,6 at Lalit Kalyan School in Lalitpur, Kathmandu at four different times in the last 12 months, April 2011, September 2011, December 2011, and March 2012. Clearly, the scores have increased on the children's perceptions of themselves as learners and on their perceptions of teachers and teaching. A more detailed inspection of the scores shows differences within some classes and between males and females, but the general trend is UPWARDS!

Why might this have occurred? 

Firstly it is undoubtedly connected to the efforts of the Principal and Teachers at Lalit Kalyan school who have worked hard to improve standards and develop a more child centred approach.

Secondly, it is worth looking at the inputs made to the school by Nepal Schools Aid during this period:

1. An eight days teacher training programme run by UK volunteers in April 2011
2. Follow up workshops run by NSA Tutors across the summer months of 2011
3. An inspection visit to the school in October 2011 with developmental feedback
4. Installation of four computers at the school to be used by staff for lesson planning and resources creation
5. Observation and demonstration of Phonics lessons and Values For Children lessons made by NSA's Senior Consultant for a month
6. Further advanced workshops for teachers run by NSA Consultants

Lalit Kalyan were a school adopted by NSA two and a half years ago and are now working with us to consolidate their learning from us so as to be sustainably independent in the coming months and years. They have reciprocated our efforts by trying hard to implement everything we have given them, by allowing us to experiment some new techniques in their school, and even by providing us with two voluntary part time Tutors to assist on our courses.

They are indeed worthy of being branded as a Quality Education School and of being a partner of Nepal Schools Aid to further quality education across Kathmandu.