Rural education in Nepal

I am about to host a visit from one of our UK funders, Mr Richard Carss, whose Foundation has been funding some of our work with rural schools in Makwanpur and adjacent districts. While we have been providing scholarships, his Foundation has been funding capital enhancements - classroom builds, toilet blocks, classroom furniture and the like. I intend to be totally frank with him in that I am increasingly of the opinion that we have been misguided in propping up a flawed system. And those who purport to support the existing system are often kidding themselves and others.


In previous posts I have mentioned the problems in village schools with huge classes, chronic under-resourcing and the routine rote form of learning that burdens children's memories pointlessly while stifling their creativity. Therein lie some of the intrinsic flaws. However, as part of a pursuit of the Holy Grail of increasing attendance and reducing drop out rates (especially for girls) incentives are used to motivate the children and their families that can totally backfire. I am currently refusing to fund any kind of a feeding programme in village schools in Rupendehi district as that fosters dependency (which once started is hard to break away from) and provides the wrong motivation to attend classes. I point to an example of how well-intentioned NGOs can get it wrong in an item that appeared in yesterday's Himalayan newspaper. It was reported that in one rural district an NGO has offered the incentive of two litres of cooking oil per month provided per child that attends classes. It seems that this has now become the only pathetic reason that families send their children to school. Children can keep repeating the same year at school over and over again, failing exams and without making any educational progress while continuing to receive oil. One mother said:


"If my daughter fails this year, we could get the oil for one more year. If she passes she will go to a distant school and there will be no one to do the household chores too. I will ask the teachers to fail my daughter this year."


So at the end of this programme (if the NGO can ever detach itself from it) the statistics will point to increased attendance of pupils and everyone, as I stated above, is fooled, including themselves. Indeed the "success" may become a paradigm for managing this endemic problem. Meantime the children will have achieved nothing, exploited by parents who seem to value them only in terms of a few paltry gallons of oil. This is why I believe we need to engage in something different and I will elaborate upon this in a later post.

It appears that the word is getting out internationally about progress on the international adoption situation in Nepal. Over the last day or two I have been obtaining more hits on this site from overseas couples who are suddenly - and understandably - researching the subject. So for those who haven't heard the news, the 440 pending cases are now going to be processed with the case files re-opened last Sunday for the first time in months. Maybe within six months they will all have been cleared, but this latter statement is a guess on my part.

This morning I found the butterfly pictured right lying dead by the roadside. This beautiful creature is a Lime Swallowtail, apparently quite common in this part of the country. In fact, interestingly Nepal has an estimated 850 species of butterflies and over half of them can be found here in Godawari. The aim now is for us to perform an act of resurrection, converting this butterfly into a vital mosaic and presenting it our mosaic exhibition in Skipton, U.K. on the 4th December. How rewarding that will be!