The Academy - an update

Just like a jigsaw the individual pieces of the new NSA Academy are now coming together. Since late June we have been creating the actual content of the Academy which will be in two main parts; The Foundation Programme and The Advanced Programme with both being focused on improving the child centred learning skills of delegate teachers. Further details of each programme can be viewed on our website at www.nepalschoolsaid.co.uk and the materials are now fully prepared including slides, workbooks and take-away resources. The entire Academy is based on a well researched curriculum of teacher training using methods and techniques fully applied by primary school teachers in the UK.

We are currently seeking financial partners for this programme so as to offer it to as wide a population in Kathmandu as possible. Our aim is to make the programme available free of charge to any teacher from any community or government school that registers with us. Registration is free and each school will have the opportunity to send one or two teachers on to a one day introductory seminar so as to get more detailed information should they need it. We will commence our marketing in mid October in Kathmandu and any teacher or Head wanting more information should visit our website and complete the relevant form to contact us. Any possible donor can help us immediately by clicking on the Donate button on the left of this blog or if you are a corporate or Grant Foundation we would be pleased to hear from you too. You should also contact us direct if you would like to make a regular monthly payment to us with a standing order.

The resourcing of the programmes is currently being planned and we need to appoint some full time and part time Tutors and Consultants depending on the finances available to us by the end of the year. We currently have a number of candidates who we will interview and assess during October but if you are reading this blog and are interested then you should contact us using the form on the Contact page of our website.

Values education in Nepal

At the end of last week a Trustee and full time Tutor were trained on SAPERE's Level 1 P4C course in London. The course covers the 10 steps in the P4C process and gives lots of opportunities to practice the necessary skills over the two days. At the end of the course the trainer very generously gave us her slides and materials which we can now use to develop our own programme of workshops in Kathmandu.

Babita and Champa are now "licensed" to run such sessions and this is a very important step in NSA's development. Combining this course with Babita having spent 2 weeks at Haverigg school in Cumbria running P4C sessions daily means that she is probably the best trained person in Nepal and we intend that she will spend a lot of her time passing on her skills to many other teachers in Kathmandu. Our work will focus on using the technique to deliver an understanding of values, ethics and morals to children in primary schools and to this end we are now renaming the technique V4C, Values 4 Children!

Maths teaching in Kathmandu

Continuing our commitment to train another 52 teachers across the summer whose English wasn't strong enough to take part in our April conference, our Tutor Bashu is currently running four Maths Teaching Workshops. Following the same content and format designed by the visiting UK experts a few months back the whole workshop purpose is to give teachers a specific structure for running any maths lesson. Following the PCAME technique, Primary Cognitive Acceleration in Maths Education, the content used to learn the technique has been predominantly focused on improved number work and data handling as example topics.

 All the 52 have to do now is to go back to their schools and to apply it!  

More exam results analysis from Nepal

My last posting gave the results overall of the recent School Leaving Certificate exams from Kathmandu showing that only 55% of students gained a pass. However a report in today's Republica newspaper has shown some analysis which really shows the vast difference between private and government schools:

Private, Public School Gap Widens Further

In summary the report states that only 46% of students passed from government schools with 90% passing from private schools. The reasons given are twofold; the gross politicisation of teachers who are unionised and affiliated to political parties and ................ a lack of training!

Of course it is the responsibility of the government to provide training and they are clearly failing in this respect. And, if you want to know how such training CAN have an impact then our own average pass rate of 67% is quite commendable, but certainly not acceptable to us.

In conclusion this analysis makes our decision to switch our focus away from providing training to only seven schools and making training more widely available to all schools in Kathmandu a good one.

We will need extra funding for this though and we are seeking a partner to help fund this using the expertise, materials and training we have developed in our first four years. We have a proven track record which can be examined by anyone who is interested in working with us.