New NSA offices in Kathmandu

We have operated for 5 years without offices or our own training rooms which has made us very efficient in our budgetary spending, but has also made us feel somewhat impermanent and homeless! But now, as a teacher training academy we need somewhere for people "to come to us" as opposed to "us going to them", and we are very pleased to announce that we have premises at Ekhalakhu in Patan, very close to the central Patan Dhoka/Durbar Square.

We have the middle floor of a 3 story building which gives us a training room for about 12 people and two offices one of which will be used as a store room. 

We will still run our main Foundation courses at our base in the Greenwich Hotel, Kupondole, but our own training room will be used for all the advanced short courses and shorter workshops, as well as the wide range of meetings we hold.

Now, some of you will be wondering how big a hole this is putting in our budget, are we now shooting ourselves in the foot and decreasing our renowned spending efficiency? Well thanks to the generosity of our friends who run the Sherpa Expeditions company in Kathmandu, especially the son Paresh, who own the building, it is costing us ........ less than £1,000 ....... per year! This means that we will save approximately 60% on course costs. Thanks Paresh.

Another contribution to quality education in Nepal

Only a week after being offered a position with us our two new consultants have just finished running their first Foundation course which they shared over 5 days supervised by Babita. The 20 teacher delegates gave them a round of applause at the end which was richly deserved.

The picture shows our full consultant team with the winning table group from the course who accumulated the most "child centred points" with the prize being a copy of The Philosophy Man's Pocket P4C book. As usual it was the two days spent on V4C that was the highlight of the week and will undoubtedly contribute to improving the quality of education in our delegates schools. As usual each delegate received a certificate of attendance.

In the next few days our team will start to work from our new premises in Patan and will be making follow up visits to 5 schools who have just started our overall programme of training.

Three Babitas???

At last, after several months of advertising, interviewing, assessing we have two additional Education Consultants. Jokingly introducing them as "our two new Babitas", Nemjala and Sangita successfully fought their way through 170 other applicants to join us a few days ago. Both have Masters degrees, both are experienced teachers, one specialising in Maths primary and one specialising in English. 

As part of our selection process, shortlisted candidates attended one or more of our Foundation courses so Nemjala and Sangita are already familiar with that part of our work and they are currently practicing with Babita so as to be able to jointly run the Foundation course next week. A big task, but one we are sure they will succeed with.

There is still much for them to learn about our methods and processes, our goals and values, as well as meeting all the schools and educational contacts we have around the Kathmandu Valley. It is a daunting time for them and they must feel somewhat overwhelmed on occasions, but they have Babita to help them into their new role and they couldn't wish for someone better to help them than someone who knows just what it is like to learn this job virtually alone!

Feedback is the breakfast of champions!

An email today from one of the teacher delegates on our Foundation course has given so much positive and useful feedback it just HAS to be transcribed here:

"Today I have learned lots about values and even ran a V4C session myself. Before attending I had no idea about how values could be taught in a professional and practical way, it is so important for us. By using this technique children will learn not only about values but also will develop listening, questioning, language and other cognitive skills. 

I have never seen or heard of this running in any school in Nepal. But with young children being at a specific development stage can learn to be more creative, can become more disciplined, cooperate more etc. In my opinion V4C will be the best technique to use with primary children and should be used in all our schools as it is so child centred and makes us better facilitators as teachers. "
This tells us exactly what we need to know from our 4th Foundation course since launching our Academy programme. It gives us the courage to continue on this path and to rebuff the doubters who snipe at our syllabus. This sort of feedback will also reinforce our case with grant foundations and potential donors who ask us if we have conducted needs-analysis or how we know we are doing the right thing. Feedback is the breakfast of champions, and ....... the most important meal of the day!