National Education Day

It is sometimes hard to remain positive about the improvement of state education in Nepal. Schools were closed to celebrate National Education Day, following three days holiday for festivals last week. Purna arrived from Kathmandu for our annual review on Monday and spent a frustrating day chasing staff at the DEO and now has a better understanding of the problems that David has faced. On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings he attended schools with David and was delighted with the progress he saw. David’s teachers had worked really hard and did their best to impress. My turn was on Tuesday afternoon; Tulsi was called to a meeting as Purna arrived which delayed us, but Durga and Govind gave copious feedback. They told amazing stories of what they feel what has been achieved – including a first class pass for Deepti (Govind’s daughter) in her MSc. When Tulsi returned he held forth at length about the factors hindering change. Both David and I have set an agenda for the next six months, with a strong recommendation that we should not be replaced here. Sad, but given the situation and constraints under which we are working, it is not good use of a finite resource. We left late, and our departure was further delayed by a visit to Umapati who had just returned back from hospital after the removal of his gall stones. We were ushered into the bedroom where he was reclining like an emperor on rather grubby pillows, splendid in snowy white kurta pyjamas, watching television. We were obliged to shout our enquiries about his health. Nirmala appeared with lemon juice and the gall stones.
At last Durga has decided we can do some monitoring visits, following up recently trained teachers. He has approached the autocratic R N Bhattarai, headteacher of our adjoining school with a view to developing a model school – great in theory. We developed a monitoring form for training follow up and questions for a focussed discussion with the 7 primary teachers at the end of the morning. There are 7 primary teachers. I was 20 minutes into an observation of period 1 when Durga came in to say he had seen every one else and we could go. I persisted and watched whole lessons with different teachers for the rest of the day. At the end of the second day I had seen everyone at least once, so have some ideas about what would be helpful. I am trying to dissuade him from calling a staff meeting to announce that they must make a model school. Durga’s next plan is to evaluate the headteachers we ‘trained’ before the monsoon. We have been to visit my friend Bina at the girl’s school, who tells him proudly that she now does MBWA (management by walking around). At least she does the walking around. Expect we’ll assess all the headteachers in Morang by the end of next week. Another box ticked. I stayed on for the rest of Friday morning watching BEd students. The Science teacher, in jeans, a T shirt with a penguin on it and a baseball cap, managed a traditional lesson on viruses. I sat at the back of class 10, looking at 68 almost identical shiny black plaits. Outside strong sunlight shone on a beautiful green view, with tall palms, darker spreading mango trees, lush brilliant green rice paddy. Small brick houses with kaleidoscope lines of washing in red, pink, yellow, lime green, purple and turquoise. The English teacher was wonderful, with lively, interactive student-centred teaching. When I talked to him after his lesson I was delighted to learn he is being taught by Bedu, with whom I have done a lot of training. There is some hope!
The introduction of our empty yoghurt pots to David’s nursery class has caused great excitement and a 50% rise in attendance. Hours of fun making towers and bridges. Stacks with tops on and without tops. Stacks of tops without bottoms. Patterns on the ground with lines of pots. Trading pots with one another. Working in twos and threes to make bigger towers and watching them fall over and everyone chasing the rolling pots to add to their store. Friday was further enlivened by one child bringing in a baby goat called Gita. Most of the time they have nothing. They work on an open porch on the concrete floor outside two classrooms sitting on big mats VSO bought.
The weather is heating up again, as apart from the occasional thunderstorm the monsoon seems to be over. Youngsters are catching bullfrogs in the rapidly drying swamps; the night time chorus has subsided and has been replaced by cicadas and mating dogs. My computer has been infested with tiny red ants again. They scurry out from between the keys when it heats up and manage to transfer themselves to my underwear. They bite. Fortunately the laptop has responded well to a liberal spraying of Baygon. The electricity cuts increase every day; sometimes we are off for more than 12 hours. Our local hospital continues to operate by candlelight.
A dramatic end to the week. After a wonderfully peaceful (but electricity free) Saturday – Karna had gone home, the family disappeared about 7am, the dog slept – our bell rang at 8pm. There was a man on the porch, asking for the key to downstairs, saying he had to stay the night. We told him that the family were away and we had no keys. With our limited Nepali we did not know what to do next, but explained that he could not get in. He leaves and returns with a crow bar and attempts to break the padlock. By this time we are safely behind our metal gate, The hammering went on for sometime; the dog fell silent ……. more ringing. Another man with some English appeared and reported that they were supposed to provide security as the family would not be back from India until the next day. Eventually they left, locking the front gate behind them and locking us in - for security.
Tomorrow is National Children’s Day and another school holiday of course. The government has announced that there will be 100% literacy in two years.