Education Development

The Education System in Nepal

For several years now, primary school attendance has been compulsory in Nepal for all children between the ages of 5 and 10, and there are many initiatives by the government and non-governmental organisations to increase primary school completion rates. However, for several reasons, there are still far too many children in Nepal who get no or only one or two years of education.
Most villages do have an accessible primary school, although still many children don’t attend this for various reasons. However, secondary schools are usually only near the market centres or roads. - Often too far away for children from the villages to continue their schooling beyond primary school.
There are two types of secondary school: Lower Secondary Schools from grade 6 to 8, and Higher Secondary Schools up to grade 10; after the 10th grade, pupils take the national school leaving exam, and are issued, if they pass (national pass rates are less than 20%) with a school leaving certificate (SLC). This is the key to all higher education and almost all salaried positions.

Here are some of the main problems in the village schools which PHASE tries to address:

Empty Classroom in Chumchet

1. learning environment: often the schools are no more than a few walls with a tin roof and wooden benches which are in constant danger of falling apart; the classrooms are dark and cold in winter, too hot in the short summer; there often is nowhere for the children to play during breaks, no toilets and no clean drinking water near the school, and children usually don’t get anything to eat between leaving their homes at 9 am and returning at 4 pm; teachers have no teaching aids to make their lessons more child friendly;
2. curriculum: the Nepalese curriculum leads up to a national school leaving examination after grade 10, which is of quite a high standard; many children are not able to follow the teaching which is geared to an exam they will never get a chance to take, but there are no provisions to help these children at least attain a minimal standard of literacy and mathematics. In many cases, they drop out of school after 1-2 years, not even able to read Nepalese.
3. Teachers: government schools are allocated teachers according to the numbers of pupils: 1 teacher per 40 pupils. In smaller villages, primary schools often have no more than 40-50 children enrolled, which means that one teacher is expected to teach all children from 1st to 5th grade… Especially in the more remote areas this is a problem, as they are thinly populated.
4. Teaching methods: until very recently, primary school teachers needed no other qualification to teach than having passed the school leaving exam themselves. As they were brought up in a “talk and chalk” school system (learning by rote), and have not studied teaching techniques, they are unable to change the style of their lessons to more child friendly format without intensive coaching.
5. Secondary schooling: Although most villages now have a primary school within an hour’s walk (still a long way for a 5 year old child…), secondary schools are few and far between, and even children who do very well academically are often unable to attend school beyond 5th grade, as the nearest secondary school may be more than 3 hours walk away - an impossible distance to cover on a daily basis, and boarding schools are unaffordable for most villagers.

PHASE Education Programmes

PHASE Worldwide supports governmental schools in our project villages with teaching materials, help to build toilets water supplies and in some cases better buildings, and support for playgrounds. We also supply salaries for extra teachers, where necessary, and help schools to support the poorest students with free books and stationary.
We support teachers with extra coaching in child-friendly teaching methods, in-post supervision and financial incentives.

Alternative ("Catch-Up") Class

In Hagam, we have very successfully cooperated with the government to run “alternative education classes” - these are little satellite schools, where children who have dropped out, or can’t attend the mainstream primary school, are coached in small groups to achieve a level of education that is comparable to the third grade of mainstream school.
We also run adult literacy classes and support the initiation of local nursery schools, where trained local women look after young village children, giving them a chance to develop a “learning routine” and social skills before starting “real school”. This is a well tried successful model in Nepal - it also frees up mothers and older girls from childminding duties, reduces accidents of poorly supervised toddlers, and even improves child nutrition (if the children are given a snack at the nursery).

A programme which we are hoping to roll out is the school link programme between Jaldevi School in Hagam and Alderman White School in Nottingham.