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.

An advanced step towards Quality Education in Nepal schools

Into April and another development milestone by Nepal Schools Aid, still as far as we know the only organisation to deliver free teacher training openly in Nepal. This week we launch our Advanced courses training programme to follow on from the Foundation Course. Our portfolio of advanced courses comprises Values For Children, a facilitation based course over 2 days, Phonics-English Early Learning, a 3 day course following the UK's Letters & Sounds process, and Literacy-English Intermediate, a 2 day course introducing teachers to using stories, drama, games to develop English language skills in older primary school children. Our staff are well trained in all of these programmes with our Senior Education Consultant having been trained in the UK during 2011.

Further courses are being developed including one on PCAME (Primary Cognitive Acceleration in Maths Education), and one on Creative Thinking Skills and these will be launched in the Autumn.

Attendance on these courses is strictly controlled with places available only to those teachers who have attended Foundation and who have shown evidence of implementing the child centred techniques previously learned. This is necessary to prevent the "collection of certificates" which can often occur in Nepal and to reassure our donors that their money is being spent wisely. (We achieve this evidence and assurance from our three stage consulting process now introduced to schools and we will write this up in the next posting)