Closing the opportunity gap
The government has formally announced that it will pilot some model education villages in different regions based on the public-private partnership concept, along with the PPP in education. It is important for the government to include the following initiatives to address some prominent issues regarding increased access to quality education, the educational needs of the country’s workforce and closing gaps in education policies. These proposed initiatives could be further explored and appropriate pilots developed.
Special Education Specialty Schools
Special Education remains to be addressed effectively in Nepal. Research in the West has found that a significant percentage of school dropouts consist of students with unidentified Learning Disabilities (LDs) such as dyslexia (an inability to process written material) and dysgraphia (an inability to write effectively by hand). While these students may be average or even gifted in intelligence (GTLD, or Gifted and Talented with a Learning Disability), it is difficult for them to realise their true potential without proper accommodation and support. Often labeled “lazy” or “poor students” by uninformed teachers and parents, these students are susceptible to dropping out. While no statistics exist for Nepal, 10 to 15 per cent of the U.S. and British population are dyslexic and it is reasonable to assume that unidentified LDs attribute to Nepal’s non-completion rate.
This population—in addition to students with hearing impairment, visual impairment and speech or language disabilities—is currently difficult to serve effectively in public schools because of a lack of teacher training and support services. Students with mild learning disabilities go unidentified, and students with physical disabilities may be identified but inadequately supported. The government needs to establish some schools that can initiate services for these students, offer assessments of learning disabilities, and become training centers for teachers who want to specialise in special education. This area will surely become a large field in the future as awareness increases. While it is unrealistic to expect all schools to be able to effectively accommodate all LDs in the near future (which in some cases would ideally require individualised computers), it is important to establish options for children with LDs that can also serve as places to pioneer LD services tailored to Nepal’s context.
Career and Technical Education
It is important for our education to be aligned with the demands of both local and global markets. We need to be able to utilise local resources and create opportunities in areas where students come from to maximise growth, spread it equally around the country, and retain talented youth. Simultaneously, Nepal needs to be able to compete in the international job market and produce a more skilled workforce, both within the country and abroad. All students should graduate from high school with at least some practical and technical skills. To this end, it would be useful to develop a policy requiring at least 6-12 credit hours of technical education for high-school graduation. This should be based on hands-on projects, with a focus on high-demand fields such as automobile repair, cellular technology, plumbing, electrical work and similar fields with strong employment potential.
Social Service Hours
Nepal has needs that cannot be fully addressed by donors or even economic growth. One such need is a population that values voluntary service to the community. This is crucial to a working democracy as well as to address myriad social challenges. Traditionally, Nepali society functioned through volunteerism, but this value has eroded at a time when it is most needed. The Ministry of Education can work to establish a culture that values volunteerism and teach valuable life lessons to students by requiring students to complete at least 40-60 hours of social service for graduation. This would have a meaningful impact on Nepal’s youth. Students would volunteer over the course of their high school career for neighborhood organisations whose leaders could certify credits. In addition, a more supervised model could be effective in Nepal’s context; for instance, a Social Service Week could be implemented where students engage in neighborhood cleanups, offer free adult literacy classes, teach internet communication to adults, and provide other services to the community.
Serve Nepal Initiative
Remote schools need more teachers. Nepal’s young people are often at a loss for ways to productively use their energy. Drawing from initiatives such as Teach for America, it would be interesting to explore the possibility of creating a program in which young graduates could be posted as teachers to needy districts for a fixed period of time (two years), working at a lower salary than government-employed teachers but with incentives such as eligibility for points in government service. This is similar to incentives for Teach for America and the U.S. Peace Corps.
This initiative would have several objectives: 1) to increase the culture of volunteerism and promote a functioning democracy and support development; 2) provide an energetic, enthusiastic cadre of teachers for rural areas where it can be difficult to find candidates who wish to live indefinitely; 3) provide recent graduates with an opportunity to gain a broader understanding of their own country and its needs, which they will take with them into a range of careers and inform their decisions as employees and voters; and 4) identify students who may not have studied education but might be interested in a teaching career.
In the U.S., scholarships for graduate study and student loan forgiveness are key incentives for such programs. Another incentive in Nepal could be lower-interest entrepreneurship loans for returned volunteers provided by the government banking sector. Consideration could also be given for government employees to volunteer as teachers for two years, with such volunteers receiving full credit for serving the government and, upon return, additional points for promotion.
A pilot program could be explored with a target of approximately 1000 volunteers.
Posted on: 2011-07-20 09:16
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