Nepal-05: Underdeveloped Society

Since I started teaching at school, I was thinking how to improve its circumstance. I wanted to make this school as good as the private schools nearby, and I thought it wasn't too difficult. Government school students are very weak at English, but those private school students didn't speak English either even though they were studying in English-medium education system. Needless to say, there are a lot of good private schools in urban areas like Kathmandu or Pokhara, yet private schools outside the cities didn't seem really different from government schools in the quality of education.

In my English class, I taught mainly grammatical structure without their textbooks which were provided by government for free. I found so many mistakes and pointless directions in the books, not only English but also the other subjects as well. I remembered the process of English lessons I had taken, so I just followed that way. I spent long enough time to make them understand a new expression and let them practice it again and again. That was like building up pyramid little by little, and I was really amused to see students’ improvement. I also tried something new in my classes and watched students’ reactions everyday. I always made them speak English to remove their hesitation. In the beginning of the class, I asked each student a simple question such as what time they got up or what they ate for dinner. And within a year, students and I had been able to communicate each other roughly that was not so easy even for private school students.

At the same time, I sometimes had a class with the male teacher so we can share our ideas of teaching. He was not only a young motivated teacher but also talented. However, the way he teaches didn't seem so effective at that time due to lack of training.

As a matter of fact, Nepali government gives teacher training constantly, but it's only for permanent teachers and those temporary teachers have to think how to teach by themselves even though they are not capable enough. I mean no offense, but people in rural areas are lack of knowledge and imagination as if they are living in the past of hundreds years ago. And most teachers, including permanent teachers, have no idea about how to teach but just following those ridiculous textbooks.

Educational systems in the developed countries have been considered and improved by academic experts over the centuries. Therefore, we, who are educated in these countries, know how the school and a class should be as common sense. It's simple common knowledge and experiences that we have got in our childhood, but under this circumstance, they are good guidance to this primitive society in many ways.

The tragedy of Nepal is that people do not understand how defective their society really is. They cannot see their own circumstance subjectively due to lack of knowledge and information about international standards. Some people dare to say Nepali educational level is even higher than other countries. And those irredeemable people have been holding the power in the educational sector and keep destroying children’s future still now. I neither think that I can change this circumstance nor I should try to. Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries, and this is the result of what people have chosen and done so far. Then, it must be changed and improved by Nepali people themselves. I’ve come to think like that, and since then, I only care of children and teach about the world whatever they feel interested to broaden their minds. Also I started to think what I can do for some hopeful students after their graduation from this school.