Category Archives: Education in General

Mastering the Art of Responding to CFP

Creative Writing, Creativity, Critical Pedagogy, Critical Thinking, Education in General, Global thought, Professional Development, Reading, reflection, Teacher Education, Teacher identity, Teachers' narratives, , , ,
Shiva Mainaly

Aristotle urges us to be a master of metaphors to grasp a living reality of a thing. Following the footsteps of Aristotle, George Lakoff and M. Johnson introduce a perspective on metaphor—a perspective that takes metaphor as imaginative rationality. Admittedly, I am inspired by these two theorists. My inspiration is that I could not help using a simile to share my modest success in getting some of my responses to Call for Conference Proposals (CFP)  accepted: Writing changes: remaking rhetoric in times of uncertainty organized by Corridors 2022 at Virginia Tech University, and  Geographies of the Fantastic and the Quotidian organized by Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) 2022 at University of Los Angeles California. For Corridors, I developed a paper entitled “Pedagogical Emasculation in the Wake of AI’s Growing Applications”, and for PAMLA, I submitted an abstract with the title “Backsliding New Materialism and a Resurgence of Interest in Virtue Ethics and Anthropomorphism”.

While responding to these two CFPs successfully, I came to know that responding to a CFP is almost similar to being a gentleman caller. Forgive my wild rush to John Dryden called ‘yoking heterogeneous ideas by violence’. More technically, responding to CFP and being a gentleman caller are distinctly disparate realms of activities. Just as forwarding a love/marriage proposal without paying sufficient courtship to a lady for a quite bit of time may backfire and probably end in rejection, so is answering to CFP without doing an extensive inquiry and without having background information on the topic. Any rush to reply to the CFP may backfire on the responder, often ending in outright rejection, which might weaken confidence and concentration. It is this point of commonality that pushed me to choose this figural trope. The fate of being a jilted lover is a bitter pill to swallow for any obsessed lover, in much the same way as it is for a responder to cope with the rejection of the abstract submission to CFP. With this figural gesture, I would like to reflect on my experience of responding to a host of CFPs.

We have seen many calls for proposals (CFP): CFP for conferences; CFP for book chapters and journal articles; CFP for intermezzo and review essays; CFP for web texts and digital projects; CFP for a success story and cross-border narrative; CFP for blogs and reflective writings, CFP for cases of advocacy, activism, and intervention; and to name just a few. Scholars, researchers, and instructors alike tend to respond to different CFPs they come across. Every responder to CFP deploys a nuanced approach. In spite of each scholar’s unique response style to CFP, there should be a few widely practised formularies to deal with CFP. Based on a few instances of my success in responding to CFP, I would like to craft a short account of responding to CFP.

In trying to emerge as a conference hopper, I kept exploring many other venues that organize national and international conferences such as the New Berry Library Conference (NBLC), Popular Culture Association (PCA), Modern Language Association (MLA) Pedagogical Training and Workshop, Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA), Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Rhetoric Society of Europe (RSE), Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) and the list goes on. Actually, these venues release CFPs that tend to address any aspect of burgeoning issues, ranging from colonial reckoning, the rhetoric of precarity and the rise of authoritarianism to social justice, the linguistic justice, power and precarity attendant to AI’s growing application in learning and teaching space. Being well informed of all these burgeoning issues and of relevant proposals to address the issue constitute a core competency on each CFP responder’s part.  Based on these two and various other successive experiences of responding to CFP, I would like to talk about some tips and strategies with which I succeeded in getting my conference proposals approved. I presented at a conference scheduled to take place at the University of Virginia Tech. Similarly, another conference proposal of mine was also accepted. In the second week of November 2022, I presented at a conference at the University of California, Los Angeles.

First, getting to the heart of an issue that takes centre stage in the CFP description is essential if we are to touch all the bases of CFP.  While describing an issue/topic for CFP, the CFP issuer tends to be specific in producing an outline of the issue; at the same time, they often write, ‘the CFP moves around this topic, but not limited to…’, to allow for a somewhat flexible space to explore and probe the proposed issue.

Previously, while formulating an excellent abstract draft for a conference call, I used to take a general approach without homing in on a specific aspect of the CFP. After multiple rounds of rejection, I learned that people want to listen to specific things. Though the conference offers a smorgasbord of various potential topics, it would be in our best interest to dwell on the specificity of the issue. As soon as I shirked off this tendency to drift away from the axis of specificity, I realized that it wouldn’t be challenging to hit the target with the single most focused thrust to the specificity. To this end, it appears that any temptation toward delving deep into the topic in a manner most lithe and supple because exploring any issue by being specific is crucial to the acceptance success of a response to CFP. As to some heuristics and nuances with which the exploration of an issue would lead to a reliable unfolding of the issue, I have come to propose here: Test the efficacy of the issue in different cultural contexts, check on its limit, be aware of its fallibility, assess if its relevance is rooted in time and occasion, reflect on its impact on our normative practice and pragmatic life, and finally stretch your imaginative faculty to probe the issue under consideration with a detached mindset. The simultaneous shifts in my mindset led me to come across an acceptable topic for the CFP I was managing to respond to.

Second, though the power of forming a fresh, attention-grabbing, and shift-stimulating perspective of any responder to CFP is highly valued, the ability to introduce this perspective tactfully and without a lag matters the most. To translate this realization into action, I reflected on my expectations about how CFP evaluators take my abstract submission and what metric they would apply to assess the submitted abstract. I also pondered if their metrics and criteria remain consistent or if they apply abstract-specific metrics. I did my best to align the core thrust of my conference abstract with the CFP evaluators’ submission-specific yardstick of judgment. At the top of my talent, I aimed at ‘striking the right chord’; with the right chord being struck precisely, the net outcome is an acceptance call.

Third, the responder to CFP should not come to terms with the issue on the first go. Instead, the responder should let the proposed issue come to terms with a cumulative effort to develop a fresh perspective. For this, curious and consistent immersion in the latent and the manifest dimensions of the issue is required of those who play what Peter Elbow calls the Believing and Doubting Game. The fourth point is the assertion that with the idea of responding to CFP comes the responsibility to CFP. CFP wishes to garner a wide range of ideas, thoughts, propositions, perspectives, comments, questions, critiques, and curiosities. Most CFPs expect a concrete contribution of ideas to the platform the CFP is creating. Thus, every responder to CFP needs to internalize that to respond to CFP is to contribute something new, a fresh perspective, a nuanced approach to dealing with the proposed issue anew, a distinct approach indeed!

The fifth point that guided my approach to responding to CFPs is being aware that often CFPs asks for a fresh take on burgeoning issue/problem. Any response to CFP should look like a solution. Adopting a down-to-earth overture is a curtain-raiser to grappling with CFP head-on. The sixth tip comes in the guise of tonality. Maintaining an insistent tone serves two-pronged purposes: one is to bracket off any interference from digressive and deluding thoughts, and the other is to help the proposed perspective gain purchase. The use of an insistent tone wards off any trace of opaqueness that might arise while homing in on the target expectation of CFP. A response to CFP needs to be formed in keeping with the persistent presumption that whether others accept a proposal or not hinges on the same tone underpinning the proposal’s substratum.

The seventh clue to conveying a response to CFP is tricky. Throughout career-building in the academic field, students, scholars, and instructors respond to different types of CFP. Their responses often vary from acceptance and partial acceptance to outright rejection. In the case of outright rejection, it might be tough to bear the brunt of rejection, which might sap the spirit and entelechy one has been cultivating since the beginning of one’s academic footprint. In this condition of being in a low spirit due to sporadic rejection, one must groom oneself with a philosophical maxim, dictum, or conviction. In the wake of angst and anxiety consequent upon the rejection of any response to CFP, it would be tactful if one with the experience of rejection switches instantly from the erstwhile mental frame of lapsing into frustration and lamentation to a new mindset informed by the conviction that having been rejected means being hurled on the rose bed of renewal.

The last trick that may prove pivotal is catching a glimpse of and acting following the zeitgeist of contemporaneity that by and now diffuses across the world of CFPs. The spirit and entelechy of inclusion have penetrated every stroke of knowledge-making. Any linguistic shred and fragment are redolent of an alienating, exclusionary, and unjust practice, triggering a domino effect that ultimately spoils the inherent acceptability of the proposed perspective, no matter how full the proposal would be. All these strategic clues ultimately come down to a praxis that justice-fostering, dignity-ennobling, and identity-acknowledging rather than a collocational, standardized, and stereotypes-filled language pave the way for enriching the acceptability of proposed response to CFP.

Graduate students preparing to enter the job market are always hard-pressed to devote their whole time to completing their dissertation research. Nevertheless, they must invest more time in responding to CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, success narratives, cross-border narratives, writing about their observation, and reflective writing. Since responding to the CFPs for a book chapter, journal articles, and intermezzo requires both intensive and extensive efforts, involvement, and time, it is relevant to conclude that trying to catch low-hanging fruit is an appropriate option for them. However, in no way should it not be understood as an underestimation of the potency and potentiality of graduate students inching closer to a threshold of the job market because there is quite an incredible number of graduate students who have already adorned their CVs with gems of their productive scholarship. However, speaking from a practical perspective and arguing in consideration of the pressure of time, including plenty of both teaching and administrative responsibility on the part of graduate students, there is every reason to advise that trying to catch low-hanging fruit still sounds like a lucrative and economical alternative for graduate students. In connection with this, responding to the CFPs for a conference, book review, review essay, essay on graduate student’s observation, and reflective writing such as cross-border narrative would be inviting and enticing for Ph.D. candidates on the verge of graduation who have built up a professional mindset of plunging into the job market soon.

At last, I would like to opine my thoughts on a type of stereotype that recurs in most of the announcements of CFP. On seeing sentences—such as ‘for book reviews and review essays, graduate students are encouraged and welcomed to contribute’—I felt irreparably stung by a scorpion of inferiority and of being pigeonholed. A query flashed across my mind instantly. There anyone, including me, could not but ask a question—why cannot graduate students, especially PhD candidates, respond to higher CFPs? The answer is obvious. In a general sense, responding to the higher CFPs demands time, resources and involvement. Graduate students are busy people who have a lot of work to do. I too was not an exception to this condition. Therefore, I was occasionally pained to see this sentence, but now I have mastered such a normal thought. With this unpleasant stream of thought, I would like to cut a long story short by saying that trying to catch low-hanging fruit—CFPs for conferences, book reviews, review essays, and reflective and observational writings—is a wise approach to redressing the harsh rhetoric of publish or perish. For clarity’s sake, I have presented below some pointers that could be helpful for any responder responding to a CFP:

  • Read and understand the CFP: It is in our best interest to go through the CFP document to understand the theme, topic, and requirements. Supportive here is the idea of paying attention to guidelines, word limits, formatting instructions, and submission deadlines.
  • Choose the right topic: Selecting a topic that aligns well with the theme of the conference or event is of enormous importance. Responders ought to make sure their research is relevant and innovative. Being mindful of the contributions the responder’s abstract makes is worth pondering.
  • Prepare an abstract: Of all the pointers pivotal to making a success of responding to CFP, crafting a compelling abstract that summarizes our paper or presentation is instrumental. So, the responder needs to clearly state the problem they are addressing, their methodological choice, and critical ideas and insights. It is good to ensure that the abstract is concise and engaging. The most crucial thing is the need to capture the attention of the reviewers.
  • Follow the submission guidelines: Successful responders to CFP ought to adhere to the submission guidelines provided by the organizers. They should pay close attention to formatting requirements, citation styles, and any specific file formats they may request.
  • Highlight your contribution: Each scholarly and institutional venue tends to judge an individual contributor to CFP in terms of their contribution. To that end, it is essential for them to clearly articulate the unique contribution of their work. The key to mastering this hurdle is to explain how it fills a gap in the existing literature, provides novel insights, or offers a fresh perspective. The responder need not dither about emphasizing their research’s significance and potential impact.
  • Present your qualifications: In an age in which an assertion is evaluated vis-à-vis self, highlighting our expertise, qualifications, and relevant experience in the field we are part of is of paramount importance. To buttress our credibility as responders to CFPs, providing a brief overview of our academic or professional background is imperative to establish credibility.
  • Proofread and edit: Before turning in our response to CFPs, it would be a cautionary measure to carefully proofread and edit our paper or abstract. If we ensure that our abstract is well-structured, free of grammatical errors, and coherent, it will be accepted. This is the principle we all need to live by. For that purpose, we can opt for feedback on our abstract from colleagues or mentors to improve the quality of our writing.
  • Meet the deadline: Submitting our response without crossing the specified deadline is advantageous because late submissions are typically not accepted. Hence, being proactive and active while planning our time and allowing for ample review and revision is of utmost importance.
  • Tailor your response: What matters most is the customization of our response to the specific requirements of the CFP. Reviewers are interested in hearing specific things; no one likes hearing general things. Thus, it is good to keep any idea of submitting generic or recycled content at bay. Tuning our response with the particular and genuine requirement is pivotal to actualizing the chance of acceptance.
  • Be professional and courteous: Since being soft and gracious matters a lot, it would be beneficial if they interact with the organizers and reviewers professionally and respectfully if they respond promptly to any inquiries or requests for additional information. The secret formulary to heighten our chance of having our abstract approved is one associated with living with a growth mindset and collaborative disposition throughout the process.

Works Cited

Garver, E. (1994). Aristotle’s rhetoric: An art of character. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.

About the Author: Shiva Mainaly is a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Louisville. Currently, at North Dakota State University (NDSU), he will become a postdoctoral research fellow from August 2023. A prolific author, he has published numerous articles in prestigious journals like the Journal of International Students, Constellation, and Composition Studies.

Inspiration to Transformation: My Academic Odyssey

Creativity, Education in General, ELT Resource, Global thought, Professional Development, Reading, reflection, Reflections, Research ideas, Teacher Education, Teacher identity, Teacher Training, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Teachers' narratives, Teaching Tips, , , , ,
Dammar Singh Saud

Introduction

Growing up in a middle-class family with five siblings, my formative years were shaped by the love and care of my elders, instilling in me a sense of confidence and freedom. Among them, my father emerged as the most influential figure, guiding me with his hard work and selfless values. As I reflect on my educational journey and professional life, I realize how my father’s schooling continues to resonate, impacting my academic pursuits and shaping me into an educator who seeks to inspire and transform the lives of others.

The Enduring Legacy of My Father: Inspiring Values in My Academic Journey

Growing up in a modest family in the Baitadi district, my father’s determination, love for education, and selflessness left an indelible impact on my values, beliefs, and personal growth.

Despite their humble circumstances, my father’s family recognized the transformative power of education, impressing upon him the importance of prioritizing learning for a brighter future. Embracing this wisdom, he excelled academically and obtained top honours in the Kanchanpur district, the western part of Nepal. Working part-time to support his further studies, he completed B.Ed. in mathematics from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and devoted over 36 years to teaching secondary-level mathematics in rural areas.

My father’s life experiences taught me the value of hard work, honesty, and unwavering determination to achieve my goals. His struggles also instilled in me a sense of gratitude for the opportunities I have today. His most profound lesson, however, was selflessness, his unwavering dedication to his family and society left an indelible impression on my character. As I pursued my academic journey, my father’s influence continued to guide me. Although my circumstances were more privileged, his lessons taught me that diligence and integrity make success possible.

His teachings not only shaped me as a good person but also as an authentic individual. I am determined to pass these invaluable lessons to my future family and students. With his enduring legacy as my compass, I seek to inspire and transform lives, just as my father has done throughout his remarkable journey.

Empowerment Through Education: A Personal Academic Journey

My academic journey commenced at home, where my family played the role of my first teachers, introducing me to alphabet belts and basic numbers. Though I began my formal education in a government school like my siblings, I had the privilege of studying in private (boarding) school (first in my family). This choice garnered public attention and prestige in our village, underscoring the value of education.

During my primary education, I excelled in memorization-based learning, securing top positions in my class. However, the system of rote learning limited my true understanding of the subjects. Shifting to government education posed initial challenges due to larger and more diverse classes, but I adapted over time, benefiting from a more flexible learning environment, albeit lacking student-centred approaches.

Upon completing my SLC, I went to Nainital India for my I.Sc., however I realized that my I.Sc. didn’t align with my interests, and faced language difficulties and homesickness. My family, understanding my predicament gave me the freedom to decide my academic path, leading me back to Mahendranagar, my hometown.

Embracing my interest in English, I pursued I.A. with English as my major subject. My academic journey continued rapidly, culminating in a B.A. with a major in English from Mahendranagar. My pursuit of higher education led me to Kathmandu, where I completed my M.A. in English literature from the central department of English in Kirtipur, achieving a first division. During my master’s studies, I harboured aspirations of becoming a police officer, inspired by the bold heroes of Hindi movies. However, my passion for teaching gradually surfaced, steering me away from the police force.

In this journey, education has played a pivotal role in empowering me intellectually. It provided me with knowledge, skills, and critical thinking abilities, enabling me to navigate various academic pursuits successfully. Furthermore, education has empowered me economically by opening doors to career opportunities and professional growth, allowing me to contribute meaningfully to society.

Education also fosters social empowerment, equipping me with the ability to share knowledge, mentor others, and contribute to the transformation of education in Nepal. Through my role as an educator, I have had the privilege of training teacher educators, presenting research papers at national and international conferences, and integrating innovative teaching strategies with ICT in language classrooms.

As I reflect on my academic journey, I recognize that education has been the key to my empowerment in multiple dimensions. Not only has it enriched my personal and professional life, but it has also instilled a deep sense of responsibility to empower others through the dissemination of knowledge and a commitment to transformative education.

Empowering Teaching Through Innovative Integration of ICT

As I embarked on my teaching journey at Darchula Multiple Campus, Khalanga, Darchula, Nepal in 2009 after completing my M.A. in English Literature from Tribhuvan University, I initially questioned whether teaching would become my true passion and profession. Not having an ELT background, my first experiences in university-level ELT classes left me feeling somewhat apprehensive. However, the positive responses and appreciation from both students and colleagues ignited a newfound enjoyment in teaching, leading me to realize that teaching was indeed my passion.

To improve my teaching skills and enhance my expertise in English Language Education further, I pursued a one-year B.Ed. and M.Ed. from Tribhuvan University. Determined to stay up to date with the latest pedagogy and educational technologies, I delved into integrating ICT into my ELT classrooms. The availability of ICT infrastructure, including computer labs, laptops, projectors, multimedia smart boards, and internet facilities, provided valuable tools to enrich the teaching and learning process.

The integration of ICT, though initially challenging, proved to be a motivating force in my teaching practices. Participating in various training sessions, workshops, webinars, and conferences, and learning from online resources like YouTube videos, I gradually adapted to using ICT more effectively in language classrooms. My colleagues often sought technical support from me when incorporating educational software such as MS Teams and Zoom during the transition to online classes amidst the pandemic.

Witnessing my students’ satisfaction and a keen interest in my classes further fueled my motivation to innovate in teaching by strategically incorporating ICT. A significant incident that highlights this impact occurred on 5th July 2021 when I was allowed to conduct ICT training for my colleagues at Far Western University Darchula Multiple Campus Khalanga Darchula. The training focused on using MS Team for upcoming online classes, and it became evident that many faculty members lacked familiarity with ICT in education. Their enthusiasm to learn and improve their ICT practices was inspiring. Guiding them through the basic functionalities of MS Team, such as creating class schedules, adding students as members, conducting quizzes, and facilitating group discussions, the session proved to be both engaging and fruitful, garnering appreciative comments from the participants and the dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Despite facing challenges within the academic environment and culture, where well-performing teachers are sometimes undervalued or discriminated against based on political affiliations, I have remained steadfast in fulfilling my professional duties honestly and responsibly. The support and belief from my family, friends, and students have been instrumental in sustaining my resilience.

Through the transformative power of education and the innovative integration of ICT, my passion for teaching has flourished, empowering me intellectually and professionally. Beyond my personal growth, I aspire to be an agent of change, promoting the meaningful use of ICT in education and contributing to the advancement of the educational landscape in Nepal.

M.Phil. at Kathmandu University as a Gateway for Transformation

I decided to pursue an MPhil in English language education from Kathmandu University with the unwavering support and encouragement from my family, friends, and students. Their belief in my abilities and the significance of advancing my academic journey propelled me to seek an institution that would catalyze personal growth and transformation. In this esteemed institution, I got amazing mentors, whose mentorship equipped me with both theoretical knowledge and practical competencies, instilling in me the confidence to implement cutting-edge teaching strategies and adapt to the ever-evolving needs of my future students. Through their guidance, I deepened my understanding of English language education and acquired the necessary skills to become a proficient teacher for 21st-century learners. Engaging in teacher professional development activities, I was exposed to innovative teaching methods, educational technologies, and effective pedagogical approaches that are most relevant in today’s dynamic classroom environments.

Furthermore, the vibrant academic environment at Kathmandu University fostered a strong sense of community among fellow students. Collaborative projects, discussions, and academic events enriched my learning experience and provided me with diverse perspectives on educational practices. This supportive network of peers and colleagues further contributed to my personal and professional growth, creating a nurturing environment for exploration and intellectual development.

During my M.Phil. journey at Kathmandu University, I experienced a profound personal transformation and achieved notable professional growth. Embracing innovative teaching strategies, I contributed to the academic field through publications and disseminated knowledge to a broader audience. Additionally, my academic journey extended into teacher education and research, as I provided training and presented research papers at national and international conferences, contributing to the advancement of Nepal’s education system. This transformation has empowered me with the confidence to foster positive change and cultivate a passion for learning among future generations.

Summing up

My academic journey has been a transformative experience, catalyzed by the influence of my father’s dedication to education and selflessness. From the early years of learning at home to my pursuit of higher education at Kathmandu University, I have been intellectually and professionally empowered. By integrating innovative teaching methods and ICT in the language classroom, I have witnessed heightened student engagement and satisfaction. This journey has also enabled me to contribute actively to the field through my publications and knowledge-sharing endeavours with fellow educators. Supported by the unwavering belief of my family, friends, and students, I am determined to leverage the transformative power of education, creating a positive impact on the lives of students, and fostering progress within Nepal’s education landscape as I continue to evolve as an educator and researcher.

About the Author: Dammar Singh Saud is an assistant professor at Far Western University, Nepal. He holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.Ed. in English Language Education. Currently pursuing an MPhil in English Language Education at Kathmandu University, his research interests include ELT Pedagogy, ICT in ELT, Teacher Professional Development, and Translanguaging.

Structural conditions are responsible for parental agency to influence the uncritical adoption of EMI: Dr. Poudel

Interview, Language planning and policy, , ,

Prem Prasad Poudel is a recent PhD graduate from The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (2021/22). He is an Assistant Professor at Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. He has experiences teaching at higher education in Nepal and Hong Kong, and has been continuously engaged in research with national and international teams on the issues of privatization in education, educational outsourcing, whole-child development, postgraduate students’ aspirations and well-being, medium of instruction policies, educational equality, and equity. He studied language policies, planning and the associated sociological issues during his PhD, and explored issues like language and social justice especially in the bi/multilingual social spaces nationally and internationally. Recently, he has been diving deeply into these issues to understand language and education issues from a socio-historical perspective.

Choutari editor, Nanibabu Ghimire has initiated a conversation with Dr. Poudel on language in education policies and practices, mother tongue education, English medium instruction (EMI) and its multiple facets. Enjoy this exclusive interview at Choutari.

 

Q: What do you think about the practices of medium of instruction (MOI) in school education in Nepal?

Starting from 1990s, we have seen significant developments in making language policies including MOI more people centric. The current constitution of Nepal allows the schools to use Nepali, English or the other languages of the nation as a medium of instruction in schools, up to the secondary level. Despite this policy, schools are aggressively (and sometimes blindly) shifting towards English medium instruction (EMI). The consequences of such shifts are adverse, especially for a multilingual and multicultural context. For instance, in Nepal’s case, even Nepali, the national language, has been displaced in many contexts from schools and has only been taught as a subject, and its (and several other languages) role as the MOI has been displaced by English. Hence, the practice of MOI in Nepal’s schools is highly English dominated. We have recently explored this issue from decolonial perspective and have published a paper, especially the colonial power of English in school and the efforts for the decolonization of it in school education in Nepal, which can be accessed here.

Q: Why are people attracted to English medium instruction (EMI) in school education in Nepal?

Good question. There is a craze toward adopting EMI in all levels of school education. This case is more serious in the early childhood education (the so called Montessori education). Several factors have driven this trend. First, EMI is our history, as it emerged along with the beginning of formal education in Nepal, which set a false belief that education in English is of better quality and of higher status. Second, the globalization and neoliberal marketization projected English as the language of opportunities, a key to cross-border employment opportunities and social mobility. The third factor is our social psychology. For example, in our case, perhaps similar to many non-native English-speaking countries, an ideology deeply rooted in Nepali society is that English is the language of prestige and higher social values such as being standard, educated or elite— an indicator of being an elite. This belief of projecting English as a high-valued language implies that languages other than English deserve less value and prestige. The main problem here lies in the superior-inferior labelling assigned to English and other non-English languages. This has affected our language choice in media, trade, education, family language practices and our lives in the public. For instance, if you walk around our marketplaces, most signboards are written in English at the top (perhaps in larger fonts) followed by Nepali (or none). This practice is intended to expand business and establish English as one of the commodities salable in the market. You know this is a form of hierarchization of languages in public places. It’s seemingly simple but has long-term implications for language policies.

Q: Despite having policy to provide basic education in learners’ mother tongue, people want to educate their children in English medium schools. How do you perceive this trend?

You’re right. There are legislative and educational policy provisions about using learners’ mother tongues or the most familiar language as a medium in schooling, which is good from a linguistic human rights perspective. However, people these days are attracted by the utilitarian values attached to languages. Some simple questions people have in their minds are, “What do I get by learning in my mother tongue? What are the benefits?” In my perspective, people today look for ‘socio-economic’ benefits out of learning in and learning of a language. This is a force coming in as a product of the neoliberal market that gives people a choice but simultaneously projects the economic gains or the material and social capital attached with learning a particular language as essential elements of an individual’s life. So, the growing trend of parents uncritically preferring to educate their children in EMI is unfortunate for contexts like ours, where children are taught the contents in the English language since the beginning of formal schooling.

Q: Meanwhile, language-minoritized parents are found to be motivated in teaching their children in EMI instead of their home language. What can be the reasons behind this?

I think the concerns should not be about majority or minority language speaking communities, rather, it should be about what structural conditions led these communities with less power to choose the dominant languages such as English for educating their children. In non-native English-speaking contexts beyond our national context as well, no matter the demographic strength of communities, they are driven by ‘English fever’. For example, in South Korea, as Choi (2022) pointed out, despite the deliberate efforts made by the governments, English continues to be the language of social prestige and quality education. Look at the Nepali native-speaking communities here in our context. People are more concerned about access to English, thinking access to English will widen their global space. The communities are abandoning or at least minimizing the use of their native languages in education. For them, it is not about whether their children learn English but the widening inequalities caused by English. Several researches in Nepal (e.g., Poudel & Choi, 2021; Phyak, 2016, 2021; Sah, 2022) have demonstrated it. While I was in the field for my doctoral study, I remember two EMI schools; one private and the other public. However, both students and parents of the public school were projecting the private school in the vicinity as of better quality. They thought that the English in these two EMI schools was unequal. They were anxious about the future life chances of their children due to the unequal exposure to English. Isn’t it interesting? So, what I mean is, people are not worried about the coercive impact of English on their ethnic/indigenous languages, rather, they are concerned about the consequences that their children might experience due to not getting exposed to zero or unequal English education. The main driving factor is their false assumption that ‘if you have English, you have everything, and if you don’t, you miss everything’, which is so unfortunate.

Q: So, does EMI improve the students’ English as parents/stakeholders think?

Schools today are intentionally or forcefully shifting their medium to English. To my knowledge, extensive research evidence to claim that the practice of EMI improves students’ English is still missing, especially from the Nepali context. However, there are mixed arguments regarding the benefits and side effects of EMI. For instance, since the 1990s, critical linguists have been questioning the inequalities in schooling posed by aggressive and unplanned adoption of EMI for children whose home language is other than English. At the same time, there are claims at the grassroots level that if EMI is appropriately implemented, extensive exposure to English may improve students’ proficiency in English. However, I would say no evidence claims that teaching English as a subject does not improve their proficiency. I think, we need more research evidence to answer your question in terms of Yes or No.

Q: How can we convince the people to teach their children in the home language (mother tongue) as mentioned in our policy documents? Or is that impractical? If yes, how?

Again, I would say that we should not think about convincing. This ‘ideology of convincing’ sounds more like a hegemonic idea, and it creates an impression of a ‘ruler-ruled’ relationship, which is impossible in an ideal democratic society. The most important thing we need to consider now is ‘what structural conditions enable the use of children’s home languages in education vis a vis English?’ Regarding policy, yes, there are relatively favourable policy conditions at the macro level, but the support systems for such policies to be implemented well are not sufficient and also are not owned by the parents, who are the key influencers in school policies. Unless we counter or challenge the prevailing ‘deficit ideologies’ concerning minority languages, we cannot realise the agenda of mother tongue education. To do so, I think one of the essential steps to be taken is enhancing the social and functional values of minority languages.

Q: Why is there a gap between MOI policy and practice in basic education in Nepal? How can this gap be eliminated?

As I also mentioned previously, the main problem is about ownership of the well-intended policies at the grassroots level. For instance, several reports of the Language Commission of Nepal have also highlighted that parental ownership concerning the use of local/indigenous languages is negligible, which invisibly forced the schools to adopt the dominant language the community gives priority to. This shows that there are instances of resistance (albeit invisible) from the bottom up, and the top-down policies have not been able to find their way. Consequently, we have missed a good policy action and positive response to the policy at the implementational level. Unless we address the factors that create this condition for policy-practice gaps, and establish causal relationships between policies and policy outcomes, such as the impact of the implementation of MOI, we will have hard times in bridging the policy-practice gaps.

Q: How do you perceive the current research practices of MOI in the global and local context? What would you suggest to researchers in language policy and planning moving forward?

Starting from the 1990s, language policy research gravely took a critical gaze, raising issues of inequalities and inequities caused by language policies of several nations. I remember one of the monumental works in language policy is J. W. Tollefson’s book, published in 1991. He raised critical concerns about challenging the structures that promote monoglossic ideologies in policy making. Since then, there are significant advancements in researching language policies such as MOI, for instances the works of Tollefson and Tsui (2004), Liddicoat and Baldauf (2008), to name some. The research trend in MOI has moved towards exploring sociological issues such as MOI and social classes, MOI and social hierarchies, inequalities, elitism, and commodification of language(s) (Block, 2021; Heller, 2010; Menken & Garcia, 2010). I am very happy to see that such issues in Nepal’s case are also increasingly explored by several applied linguists and critical scholars like Dr. Lava Deo Awasthi, Dr. R. A. Giri, Dr. Prem Phyak, Dr. Pramod Kumar Sah and several other emerging scholars including you. I cannot name every work of everyone of the language policy scholars here in this short interview, but I know that emerging scholars are exploring several socially embedded issues in language policy such as MOI. The critical scholars have also questioned the threats generated by English on the very existence of other languages in their respective community contexts at the global level. Another important development in our case is that universities (e.g., Far Western University) have developed very specific courses on language policy and policy research in M. Phil and PhD programs. I am sure that such developments will expand our context-specific research on language policy and associated concerns.

One of the critical concerns we need to explore is the intersectionality of language policies (e.g., MOI) with broader historical, structural, cultural and economic conditions of the society. We have initiated a discourse in this direction through a publication (see Poudel & Choi, 2022- entitled “Discourses shaping the language-in-education policy and foreign language education in Nepal: An intersectional perspective). I would suggest future language policy researchers direct their research on identifying the relationship of the forces such as nationalism, neoliberal marketization and ethnicity and their impact on language policy decisions and implementation. It would also be interesting to see (even question) the roles of national and international organizations (e.g., The World Bank, OECD, EU etc.) promoting the neoliberal agenda that aims to homogenize the world while also advocating for diversity and equity. Future research could also explore the ways of enhancing community participation and engagement in establishing an equitable society by promoting the local languages and cultures so that the local epistemologies can be preserved and used in uplifting the lives of people who are living under conditions of the feeling of inferiority, minoritization and hatred. To be frank, we need to engage in critical dialogues at all levels of governance to realize the agenda of multilingualism.

As you have come to this point, you might have thoughts, feelings, and views about Dr. Poudel’s opinions and the issues raised here, so we invite you to drop your comments and questions below to advance the discourse. 

[To cite it: Paudel, P.P. (2022, October 15). Structural conditions are responsible for parental agency to influence the uncritical adoption of EMI: Dr. Poudel, PhD [blog post]. Retrieved from https://eltchoutari.com/2022/10/structural-conditions-are-responsible-for-parental-agency-to-influence-the-uncritical-adoption-of-emi-dr-poudel/]

Mismatches on Educational Language Policy and Practice: A Critical Reflection

Language planning and policy
Basanta Kandel

Abstract

This article critically reflected the mismatches in educational language policy and practices in the schools located in the rural part of Nepal. Adopting the critical ethnography, I observed the classes of two basic level schools as a participant observer, conducted semi-structured interviews with four teachers, organized an FGD with teachers, maintained field notes, and reviewed the policy documents of local government to collect the information. The study revealed that the language policymakers and arbiters have mismatches on educational language policy ideologies, the local government’s educational language policy and its practices in the schools seem inconsistency that spaced conflicts amid monolingual, bilingual and multilingual policies and practices in education. 

Keywords: Educational language policy, critical ethnography, ideological and implementational space, mismatches

Introduction

            Educational Language Policy (ELP) is defined as “the official and unofficial policies that are created across multiple layers and poor institutional context and have an impact on language use and education in schools” (Johnson, 2013, p. 77). Since 1970s, the ELP has attracted the attention of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) scholars (Tollefson & Tsui, 2018), especially, how language policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation in schools impact educational processes and pedagogy (Johnson, 2013; Johnson & Pratt, 2014). The school as a broader site of language policy processes (Johnson, 2013) and the teachers and students as prime policy arbiters have greater responsibilities for the effective implementation of policies. In addition, the teacher as the major agency of ELP generates authority to allow or restrict the use of multiple languages in their classrooms, assures the ideological and implementational spaces, and creates an equitable linguistic environment. However, in the context of school sited in the rural part of Nepal, the ELP seem to have been implemented and practiced haphazardly that has resulted mismatches and conflicts among languages. The Constitution of Nepal (2015) has legally authorized the rights of decision-making on ELP to the Local Government (LG) (Poudel & Choi, 2020) with reference to the contexts, demands, and necessities of the stakeholders. Therefore, the LG is the authoritative organ to devise and implement ELP corresponding with the federal and provincial governments’ acts and policies. Conversely, the schools at local level have diverse policies and practices of languages that have impacted the content and quality of education. With this backdrop, the article focuses on how the teachers in remote schools create, interpret and appropriate language policy in their classrooms. Employing the ‘critical ethnography research on ELP’ (McCarty, 2011) at Vyas Municipal Government, Tanahun, I disclosed how the teachers and students acclimatize educational language policy and practice in multilingual school/classroom settings since ethnography of language policy as a method used to explore the multiple layers of language LPP processes with a focus on the power of individuals within educational contexts (Hornberger and Johnson, 2007).  

Methods of the Study

            This study has applied critical ethnography research design (McCarty, 2011) of the qualitative research approach under the critical-interpretive paradigm. For the study, I collected information using participant observation of basic level classrooms, semi-structured interviews with teachers, FGD with teachers, and policy reviews of the local government (i.e. Vyas Municipal Government, Tanahun). Four basic level teachers and a group of students were the participants in the study. The data were transcribed in participant’s mother tongue and translated in English. They are coded and three major themes were developed based on the codes for data analysis and interpretation. 

Results and Discussions

The information has been critically analyzed, interpreted, and reflected in three major themes such as ‘mismatches in ideologies’, ‘mismatches in policy and practice’, ‘conflicts amid monolingual, bilingual and multilingual policies’ that have been presented in the subsequent section.  

Mismatches on Ideologies

            During the fieldwork, I encountered multiple and divergent ideologies of teachers and students on language policy process. The teachers’ determinations, interests, and vested ideologies on ELP have created ideological tensions among them and impacted teaching-learning activities. Vyas Municipal Government has promulgated Education Act (2017) and Education Bylaws (2018) that instruct to adopt ‘trilingual policy’ (i.e., Nepali, English, and Mother Tongue) in education, and have created ‘ideological and implementational spaces’ to local languages as well. However, the teachers have reflected divergent ideologies regarding the ELP in their contexts;  

Nepali Language Policy (NLP) is good, the field of knowledge becomes wider and students learn a lot. Students’ knowledge is narrowed down due to ELP). English Medium Instruction (EMI) gives 50 percent knowledge, I believe. (From interview transcript, T: 2)

Contrary, the next teacher participant (T: 1) expressed his agency focusing on the demand, need and necessity of ELP in education;

ELP in education is necessary to produce manpower who can grab the opportunities in the world market; therefore, we have adopted English in education for five years. First, it was the demand of time, second, the pressure from parents ignited to adopt the policy. (Form interview transcript, T: 1).

The multiple and divergent ideologies of teachers regarding the creation, interpretation, and appropriation of ELP have produced ideological discrepancies and created tensions and challenges for the effective implementation in the classroom rather than a compromise. The diverse expressions and ideological variance challenge policy creation and implementation in multilingual classroom settings. Most importantly, the policy arbiters’ ideologies have been divided into multiple groups in terms of language used in the classroom. Because of ideological clashes, the ELP is a blazing issue of debate in the multilingual classroom environment in Nepal.    

Mismatches in Policy and Practice

            School is the center of language policy practices, and teachers and students are the final arbiters (Johnson, 2013) and policy implementers. Moreover, teachers create their own ideological and implementational spaces in the classrooms which have resulted mismatches between local ELP and its practices. For example; the schools have adopted a bilingual policy (i.e., Nepali and English), however, the local government’s ELP has instructed them to use mother tongue compulsorily in basic level classes. I observed that the LG’s ELP has not been thoroughly implemented and practiced in schools; consequently, there exists inconsistency between policy and practices as instructed by LG. The school teachers have been interpreting, appropriating, and practicing ELP unfairly, for example; in English subject, the teacher and students adopt a bilingual policy (i.e., English and Nepali) but Vyas Municipal Education Act (2017) instructs languages (as a subject) shall be taught in the same language.

# Vignette 1: Language policy in the classroom (School: A, Grade -6)

              (Topic: Biography of TS Eliot)

            T: (students, please listen to me, ok?) TS Eliot was a playwright. You know                                playwright?

            S1:  No miss. What’s the meaning?

            T:  A Playwright is a person who writes drama or plays.

            T:  Playwright bhnaeko drama arthat natak lekhne byakti ho ke. Ho aba                                  bujyeu timiharule?

            Ss: Yes, Miss. Aba bujhiyo. Nepalima bhanepachhi. (We understood after you                            said it in Nepali)

            T: Ok, now say a playwright is a person who writes drama or plays…

            Ss: (Then students follow the teacher) …                                    

                                                                                             (Field note, July 24, 2021)  

The policy provisions that basic education will be compulsorily provided in the mother tongue of the students; however, the schools do not have such practices rather they create and implement ELP on their own. The local ELP attempts to alleviate gaps in policies and practices but no proper implementation has been done in schools. The teachers state that the schools have mismatches among English-only, Nepali-only and Hybrid (mixed) language polices (Giri, 2015) but no consistency. The majority of schools have followed hybrid language policy (Kandel, 2021) as the teachers advocate “hybrid language policy has made the students easier to understand contents; therefore, the policy have been effective in our contexts” (FGD with teachers, July 24, 2021).

Conflicts amid Monolingual, Bilingual, and Multilingual Policies

            There is a challenge to maintaining uniformed ELP because of linguistic and ethnic diversification of students and teachers. The varied ‘ideological awareness’ (Bakhtin, 1981), linguistic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds of policy arbiters in schools have spaced the critical perspective on ELP; consequently, the teachers revealed conflicting ideologies regarding the use of languages in education. Ultimately, the schools in the territory have adopted monolingual, bilingual and multilingual policies and practices in their classrooms. See verbatim of the teachers in the FGDs;

            The classes from nursery to class ten are taught in English…First, it was the demand of the time, second, the pressure – the people from other places came to our school and demanded English medium. EMI has been adopted for 5 years. (FGD, T: 2, July 24, 2021)

            We do not have a 100 percent EMI policy in school; we use about 70 percent English and 30 percent Nepali. Teaching in both English and Nepali has made it easier to understand contents. So the bilingual policy is very good. We have been adopting mixed medium. (FGD, T: 3, July 25, 2021).

            In English subject, if the students don’t understand, I translate it into Nepali and Hindi   as well. I also prefer students’ mother tongues. Therefore, I use three to four languages in my class. (FGD, T: 4, July 26, 2021)

            The above excerpts reveal the fact that there is a dilemma whether to adopt EMI or NMI or MTB-MLE policy in education (Phyak, 2013), which has created tensions and mismatches to the teachers to deliver the contents. The disparities in policies have spaced and raised linguistic conflicts and unhealthy competition among languages and their users.  

Conclusion

            In Nepal, ELP has raised a national debate; especially in the multilingual school/classroom contexts. The policy arbiters (i. e., teachers and students) have created, interpreted, and appropriated ELP in the classrooms without analyzing the consequences and results. Similarly, the ELP adopted by the schools and teachers is divergent to LG’s education act and policy, national education policy, and constitutional provisions; as a result, there seem mismatches and gaps in policies and practices. Therefore, the local governments seem failure to utilize local linguistic capital and are inactive to implement the local ELP in schools/classrooms. To conclude, I suggest the local government, school authorities, and policy arbiters need adequate interaction and discussion for the ‘ideological clarification’ before, while and after the creation of ELP.

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Fours essays. University of Texas Press.

Constitution of Nepal. (2015). The Secretariat of Constituent Assembly. Nepal Law Commission.

Giri, R. A. (2015). The many faces of English in Nepal. Asian Englishes, 17(2), 94-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/13488678.2015.1003452

Hornberger, N. H., & Johnson, D. C. (2007). Slicing the onion ethnographically. Layers and spaces in multilingual language education policy and practice. TESOL Quarterly, 41(3), 509-532. https://doi.org/10.2307/40264383

Johnson, D. C. (2013). Language policy. Palgrave Macmilan.

Johnson, D.C. and Pratt, K. (2014). Educational language policy and planning. In C. A Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons.

Kandel, B. (2021). Languages in education: A critical ethnography of a micro-level policy,   Journal of NELTA, 26 (1-2), 183-203.  https://doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v26i1-2.45206

McCarty, T. L. (Ed.). (2011). Ethnography and language policy. Routledge.

Poudel, P. P. & Choi, T. H. (2020): Policymakers’ agency and the structure: The case of medium of instruction policy in multilingual Nepal, Current Issues in Language Planning, https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14664208.2020.1741235

Ricento, T., & Hornberger, N. H. (1996). Unpeeling the onion: Language planning and policy and the ELT professional. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 401–427.

Tollefson, J. W. & Tsui, A. B. M. (2018). Medium of instruction policy. In J. W. Tollefson and M. Perez-Milans (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Policy and Planning, OUP. https://doi.org/ 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190458898.013.12

Vyas Municipal Education Act. (2017). Local Gazette. Vyas Municipality.

Vyas Municipal Education Bylaw. (2018). Local Gazette. Vyas Municipality.

About author

Basanta Kandel is a Lecturer of English at Aadikavi Bhanubhakta Campus, Tanahun, and a Ph. D. Scholar in Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is the Vice-chair of NELTA Tanahun, a Member of IATEFL, and the Editor of vyasshree.com. He has published dozens of articles, edited journals, and presented papers at national and international conferences (IATEFL, UK and LPP, Canada). His areas of interest include language policy and planning, linguistics, ELT, and research methodology.

[To cite this: Kandel. B., (2022, October 15). Mismatches on Educational Language Policy and Practice: A Critical Reflection [blog post]. Retrieved from https://eltchoutari.com/2022/10/mismatches-on-educational-language-policy-and-practice-a-critical-reflection/]

Language in Education Policy at Local Level of Nepal

Language planning and policy
Dinesh Panthee

Abstract

This paper tries to explore the process and practices of language in education policy in local governments of Nepal. For the study, I selected a local government of the Rupandehi district and took the mayor and deputy mayor as respondents who have been working in the area of local policy-making activities. I performed in-depth interviews for the qualitative data with semi-structured interviews based on the education and language policies they had prepared before. The finding of this research revealed that there is an inconsistency between policies and practices of language in education policy in local governments of Nepal. It is also found that policymakers are positive to promote the local languages but inattention is found by the local language communities.

Key Words:  Language in education policy, language planning, local government, local language, English as the medium of instruction

Introduction

Nepal is a little nation with a wide variety of cultures, languages, ethnic groups, and biological areas. According to Census 2011, there are more than 123 languages and 125 ethnic groups in Nepal. These languages are genetically affiliated to four language families: Indo-European (Indo-Aryan), Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman), Austro-Asiatic, and Dravidian. The Indo-Aryan family is the largest language group in Nepal in terms of the number of speakers. Among these languages, “most Indo-Aryan languages have literate traditions and share a well-developed writing system” (Giri, 2009, p. 34). According to the Census 2011, there are eight major languages spoken in Nepal. They are Nepali (44.6%), Maithali (11.7%), Bhojpuri (5.78%), Tharu (5.11%), Tamang (5.11%), Newar (3.2%), Magar (2.98%), and Awadhi (2.47%). Nepal’s inherent and historical identity is its multilingualism. Diversity in language, culture, and ethnicity has long been a defining characteristic of Nepali society. The same type of characteristics is found at the local levels of Nepal. Different languages function as symbols of ethnic identity and each speech community wants to preserve and promote its language. As the primary governing body, the local level should be aware to protect local languages, script, culture, cultural civility, and heritage in its territory. The Constitution of Nepal (2015) article 32(1) has provisioned the basic right to each community, the right to get basic education in the mother tongue and to preserve and promote the community’s language, script, culture, cultural civility, and heritage. The Constitution of Nepal (2015) has also taken local government as an autonomous body that can formulate the policies and laws to preserve the language, script, sculpture, art, music, literature, and another custom of their community. Due to high linguistic diversity, local governments find autonomously managing language in education policy rather challenging, though they also welcome the new opportunity to address local issues related to language in education (Poudel, & Choi, 2021).

Language-in-education policy is one of the fundamental issues of language planning studies. According to Shohamy (2006), language in education policy is a method of imposing and manipulating language policy since individuals in positions of control use it to put ideology into practice through formal education. Nepal became a Federal Republic Democratic country after the promulgation of the Constitution of Nepal (2015). This constitution provisioned three levels of the elected governments in Nepal: federal government, provincial government (seven provinces), and local government (753 municipalities). Local governments have given decision-making power in several educational matters under this Constitution. They have been given the authority to design and develop their education policies, including language in education policy, though these governments need to line up with the fundamental framework provided by the federal government. Due to high sociolinguistic diversity, local governments are facing challenges in implementing education policies in their municipalities (Panthee, 2021). There is an education committee that actively participates in formulating policy which is made up of professionals, legislators, head teachers, and education authorities. This committee along with the local government are responsible for planning, implementing, and monitoring locally developed courses and appropriate policies, as well as providing financial support to their educational institutions. The objective of this study was to explore the inconsistency between policies and practices of language in education policy in local governments. This paper is significant in the sense that how the local governments are involving formulating and implementing the language in education policy in the multilingual context.

Methodology

This paper is based on the theoretical lens of ‘the critical ethnography of Language in the education policy of the local government of Nepal. Critical ethnography is a method of examining the spaces for agencies, actors, contexts, and processes across the multiple strata of language policy creation, interpretation, and appropriation espousing a critical approach focused on the educational context (Hornberger & Johnson, 2007). I engaged in a research site which was a municipality in Rupandehi district. I was involved in the field with the mayor and deputy mayor who were key persons in formulating different policies including language in education policy. I performed in-depth interviews for the qualitative data and conducted semi-structured interviews based on the education and language policies they had prepared before. The interview was conducted in a natural setting without being judgmental according to their convenience. I recorded the information in audio recording supported by note keeping. I employed qualitative data analysis process which includes transcribing, editing, summarizing, organizing, categorizing deriving conclusions from the information collected from various sources.

Results and Discussion

LEP at the Local Level Beyond the Practice

The local governments have been given the authority to design and develop their education policies. The research site of this study has prepared its education policy as Municipal Education Act 2018. Article 7 of the act has provisioned that the medium of instruction to be provided by the schools shall be the Nepali language, English language, or both languages. Primary education can be given in the mother tongue. Languages [as a subject] shall be taught in the same language. The medium of instruction for English language teaching must be English. The municipality has the concept of monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual education concept for the transformation (Education Act 2018). The municipality has concerned about the national policy on language and education. It has prepared the education policy according to the essence of the constitution of Nepal and tried to formulate education policies to mitigate gaps in policies and practices.  In this regard mayor of the municipality stated that we are careful to protect local and indigenous languages and prepared the policy according to the constitution of Nepal.  The municipalities have mentioned and focused on mother tongue-based education, multilingual education, and English as mediums of instruction but it is very difficult to apply in the real sense. According to Poudel and Choi (2021), the Constitution of Nepal-2015, which offers a suitable legislative framework for substantive legal protection for the national indigenous languages as a medium of instruction, addresses the challenges of protecting and promoting historically existing linguistic variety. In the same way, the deputy mayor showed devotion to protecting the indigenous language and said;

we are aware to protect the local languages and made the policy according to the constitution of Nepal but it is very difficult to apply the policy because of the fascination with English as an international language and Nepali as an official language.

Local governments have to choose bi- and multilingualism as a minimum requirement to teach children at the primary level as basic education for the creation of this strong foundation to take place. But it is very difficult to successfully implement this provision due to the global political economy, interdependence, and diversity of the municipalities. Kadel, (2015, p. 196) states that there is a huge challenge for the local governments of Nepal to implement the plans and policies effectively. The deputy mayor said, “We are encouraging local people to promote their language but they are not giving priority to the languages they send their children to English medium schools from ECD”. It demonstrates how the locals have neglected to promote their languages. Three-level governments are silent on this issue, leaving parents, educators, and school management committees to decide whether to stick with their mother tongue-based multilingual education strategy or transition to English (Phyak, 2013, 41).

Mother Tongue-Based Language Policy but Lacks in Practices

Mother tongue-based multilingual education is a form of multilingual education built on the learners’ mother tongue. Kandel (2010) argued that mother tongue-based multilingual education is significant not only to develop a strong educational foundation but also to strengthen the cognitive development of learners at the beginning of education. Mother tongue-based multilingual education helps strengthen the first language and provides a smooth transition from the first language to the second and the third language. In this regard, the mayor said

We understand providing education in the mother tongue is the best way of educating children at the primary level so we have stated the provision as every Nepali community residing in our municipality shall have the right to acquire education in the mother tongue. But local people are not positive about it and they send their children to Nepali and English medium schools so we are unable to apply the local curriculum in local languages.

Above mentioned saying states that the policymakers are positive to protect local language but local people neglect to use their mother tongue in education. Where education is not provided in a child’s first language this is increasingly seen as a form of discrimination, limiting the application of this right. UNESCO (2011) referring to Skutnabb- Kangas (2003) states that if teaching is in a language that an indigenous child does not know, the child sits in the classroom for the first 2-3 years without understanding much of the teaching. Language-in-education policymaking is complicated primarily due to its unique demographic structure, i.e., the multilingual and multiethnic population of the municipalities. The federal, provincial, and local governments are focusing on MT-MLE policies but the parents are not emphasizing it. They are not convinced of the value of the MLE program. Speaking one’s mother tongue, as well as the national language and the international language, not only gives one more option in life but also promotes national cohesion (Baker, 2011).

Positive Attitude toward Local Languages, but Emphasis on English Medium

Both policymakers have a strong positive attitude toward protecting local and indigenous languages. They feel more prestigious to protect and promote local culture, language, and art. But local people themselves are embarrassed about speaking their native languages in the presence of speakers of the dominant language. They believe that educating children in their mother tongue has created a children-friendly atmosphere in the school but the mayor claimed that ‘Parents are not ready to send their children to their mother tongue-based school even Nepali medium school.’ There is a trend of sending children to English medium school because they believe that studying English medium gives better results. Deputy Mayor argued that her municipality encouraged English medium instruction since English is an international language and learning it would help students in the long run. Parents have a mindset that their children receive quality education only when they go to English medium schools. Slowly and gradually community schools are shifting into English medium schools from Nepali medium schools. The mayor said ‘We are allocating enough budget to strengthen community schools to improve English as a medium of instruction. Therefore, English-medium instruction at institutional schools and some community schools in Nepal is currently being evaluated for quality in terms of instruction. So we can find that the policymakers are positive to protect local languages but local language communities are not aware to protect their mother tongue. They want to send their children to English medium schools and they focus on English as a subject and medium of instruction. In the name of quality and parents’ demand, community schools are shifting to English medium schools.

Conclusion

Nepal is facing the complexity of language policy-making in education. The promulgation of the Constitution of Nepal (2015) officially transformed the country into a federal republic democratic nation that delegated the authority of decision-making in many educational issues to local governments. The local government has been preparing the policies as per the constitution of Nepal. They are struggling to implement its educational policies and plans. This study found that federal, provincial, and local governments made different provisions concerning language in education but it is difficult to implement in real practices. There is an inconsistency between policies and practices of language in education policy in local governments. Even though local governments have made various provisions to respect the local languages, students and parents do not go with the MT-MLE policies. It is dominance of English as a sign of dominance and linguistic capital.

Author’s note: This paper is a part of my M.Phil. study at the Graduate School of Education,  Tribhuvan University, Nepal. 

References

Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Multilingual matters.

Central Bureau of Statistics. (2012). National population and housing census-2011.             Kathmandu: Central Bureau of Statistics, National Planning Commission (NPC).

Constitution of Nepal. (2015). The Government of Nepal. Kanun Kitab Bebastha                   Samittee.

Education Act (2018). Sainamaina Municipality Lumbini Province Nepal.

Giri, R. A. (2009). The politics of ‘unplanning’ of languages in Nepal. Journal of                        NELTA, 32-44.

Kadel, P. (2015). Reviewing multilingual education in Nepal. Multilingual and                           development, 189-204.

Kandel, P. (2010). Mother tongue-based multilingual education. Nepal: Language                Development Centre (LDC)

Panthee, D. (2021). Language in education policy in local governments: A case of                Rupandehi district. Journal of NELTA Gandaki, 4(1-2), 119-132.

Phyak, P. (2013). Language ideologies and local languages as the medium-of-                         instruction policy: A critical ethnography of a multilingual school in Nepal.                   Current Issues in Language Planning,                          https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14664208.2013.775557

Poudel, P. P., & Choi, T. H. (2021). Policymakers’ agency and the structure: The case               of the medium of instruction policy in multilingual Nepal. Current Issues in                  Language Planning, 22(1-2), 79-98.

Ricento, T. K., & Hornberger, N. H. (1996). Unpeeling the onion: Language planning             and policy and the ELT professional. Tesol Quarterly, 30(3), 401-427.

Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches.                            Routledge.

UNESCO, (2011). Multilingual education in Nepal: Hearsay and reality? A report. Kathmandu: UNESCO. https://bangkok.unesco.org/content/multilingual-education-nepal-hearsay-and-reality-report

About Author

Dinesh Panthee is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Sahid Narayan Pokharel Ramapur Campus Sainamaina, Rupandehi, Nepal. He is an M Phil scholar at Graduate school of Education, TU. He is interested on language in education policies, methods and techniques in education, teacher professional development, ICTs in education, and eastern philosophy including Buddhism. He is the membership secretary of NELTA Butwal.

[To cite this: Panthee. D., (2022, October 15). Language in Education Policy at Local Level of Nepal [blog post]. Retrieved from https://eltchoutari.com/2022/10/language-in-education-policy-at-local-level-of-nepal/]

Transforming school education: Learning from COVID-19 and pathways ahead

Critical Outlook, EducationInEmergency, Reflections, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, , ,
Prem Prasad Poudel

The context

The coronavirus (i.e., COVID-19) crisis has brought unprecedented challenges in all the systems including education globally, and communities, particularly in the developing countries, are suffering the most as the public service systems in these countries are not well-planned. The coronavirus pandemic has been a portal that leads the world to reconfigure the future (Roy, 2020) largely different from the one we are/were living. The human sufferings are unprecedented, and of course not measurable either in terms of the economic, social, and psychological losses (both visible and invisible). There are tragic consequences everywhere, and the education sector is one of the most affected ones due to school closure, leaving millions of students from pre-school to the university at homes. The fundamental services of education have halted, with students without textbooks, face-to-face formal interactions, and detachment from their peers. This unexpected context has forced people to think about transformations for the future to enable the pedagogical contexts to recover from the losses, and to cope with the similar future challenging in education systems.

Although schools and universities have tried hard and the best to compensate the loss of schooling by adopting the online mode of instruction, both teachers and students’ limited access to internet facilities, particularly in the least developed countries (LDCs) such as Nepal has become a barrier to holistically shift the physical school to online teaching and learning. This scenario has further accentuated the discourse on equity, concerning the widening gap in terms of access to resources, learning opportunities, human resource management, and the effectiveness of the learning (if any). Similar to Ebola, AIDS, SARS, and Spanish Flu, this pandemic has taught us a lot about humanity, human attachments, health, and urgency of international cooperation. Against this backdrop, in this paper, I have presented my reflection, not necessarily based on strong empirical data, on the potential pathways that we MUST adopt to accelerate transformations in our education systems. By ‘our’, I mean Nepali society, however, my arguments would equally apply to other similar contexts waiting for reforms in their education systems.

The schools are closed for an indefinite time, and standardised tests are suspended. Discourses on educational standards and qualities are extended and enlarged due to the spread of coronavirus. Many people are living with the absence of their friends and families, while others are crammed in their families experiencing probably the longest moment of togetherness with family members. For many, the homes are transferred to online learning stations. The online meetings have covered the walls of Facebook and other social media pages. Perhaps it is the worst ever experience my generation people have had of such pandemic. However, it should also be taken as an opportunity and the right time for countries and relevant communities to unlearn, relearn and rebuild their educational systems to prepare for a better future.

The challenges in schooling

Despite the massive stimulus measures in response to the Covid-19 effects, the global economy is estimated to be hit by recession in 80 years (Guenette, 2020), the deepest since World War II (Al-Samarrai, Gangwar, & Priyal, 2020), and the financial distress will severely impact on the education sector. In other words, this pandemic is likely to impact on several key aspects of education, including financing, resource management, school expansion, and access to learning.

Financing Constraints

The pandemic crisis is likely to leave the education sector vulnerable in terms of infrastructure development including the endeavours to equip schools with technological innovations. In Nepal, the budget allocated for education is inadequate. In the fiscal year 2076/77 (2020/21 AD), the Government allocated 11.64% budget for the education sector (Ghimire, 2020, May 29), which is very less than the budget spent in countries with larger and established economies. Although here is a mere increase in the budget compared to the current fiscal year, two of the ambitious programmes:six-thousand volunteer teacher mobilisation and mid-day meal, will cover more than three quarters (6 billion) of the total increment of 8 billion rupees. It indicates that there will be a limited budget needed to embrace information and communication technology (ICT) in the educational sector.

Human resource development and management

The low-level budget allocations in the education sector, especially in higher education will have serious consequences in managing technical human resources, and technological innovations, due to budget shortages. It is making both short-term and long-term effects on human resources development on handling the technology integration in teaching and learning. Last month, I had a talk with a teacher of a primary school about the use of technology in teaching, and his immediate reaction was “We have a computer and a printer in our school, but we are unable to use them because we could not find a technician to repair them”. His exemplary experience informs us about the level of understanding of what technology in teaching is, and how computer technology is used in schools in remote Nepal. I had a short visit to one of the public campuses in Kathmandu Valley, and during a talk, the campus chief of the campus said, “Sir, we have managed IT on our campus”. I was thrilled and wanted to see how they have made the reform. He took me to one of the carpeted classrooms and showed some computers (seemingly unused for months) and said that it was the IT lab, where students could occasionally go to learn the computer.

These two instances, which I brought here from my own primary experience, tell us how people perceive the use of technology in teaching and learning. In none of the above cases, there was technology integration in pedagogy. They have understood that technology means having computers and using them occasionally for specific purposes such as showing how to open a word file, how to type, and how to print. The development of a broader framework for human resource development in a planned way is a greater challenge ahead.

School expansion and access

Insufficient budget for public education leads to the decline in education outcomes, and poorer education services, which ultimately impacts on parents’ affordability for their children’s education. In Nepal, usually, the households that largely rely on the remittances for education funding of their children and relatives will suffer a lot. It is predicted that expensive private school education will cause an increment in the enrollment in community schools and then pressurise the community schools to accommodate a large number of students. However, community schools at the current state without minimum ICT infrastructure and comfortable learning environment for those students coming from private schools will not be able to hold them and again private schools may take this advantage. Consequently, the social gap between the communities with high and low-income will be much wider than it is.

These challenges, along with many others, need to be addressed in time to meet the new demands of educating in the post-crisis period. I suggest some viable ways to begin the reform in education in Nepal.

Ways ahead

In general, the current context requires us to understand and transform the overall schooling system in a completely different way, as the opportunities for learning have completely gone online. However, the majority of students and teachers, particularly in Nepal, are unable to access online learning for many reasons including the lack of ICT infrastructure, expensive mobile data, and limited or no digital literacy of teachers and students. Complaints have been raised regarding teachers’ efficiency in the use of the online learning management system (LMS) platforms. Teachers’ inability is not due to their negligence but due to their ill-prepared teacher education systems (programmes) that did not equip them with even the basics of integrating technology in pedagogy.

I remember when I was mentoring some students during their field experience in teaching three years ago that they were compelled to follow the lesson planning as par with the lesson plan booklets commercially prepared. This practice barred the students to prepare their lessons autonomously. One of the student teachers asked, “Sir, is it good for English students to follow the same pattern as Science students while preparing lesson plans using this booklet?”. I was speechless, as I knew that this system was not viable, and the student teachers were not even having their own space for altering the patterns of lesson preparation. All the student teachers were filling out the same lesson plan formats provided to them. This is just an example that how we are highly structured in our education systems, following the conventions developed decades ago, and not even asking students to think beyond the box. The main concern I wanted to raise here is that “How does the current strategy of educating and preparing teachers to meet with the growing challenges in learner autonomy, blended learning, and integration of technology in teaching and learning?”.

The crisis has prevailed a need for school transformation by enabling educators and teachers. However, the economic crisis hit by COVID-19 will be a great challenge particularly for developing countries like Nepal to even revive the pre-COVID-19 schools. School transformation is a multifaceted process, including teacher empowerment, readiness, and responsiveness. It is a high time to think about how the teachers can be better equipped to navigate the wounds surfaced in this dark time to reconstruct life anew for themselves and their children through the schooling process. The relevant government agencies can also think of benefitting from the outsourcing of the education services, especially in terms of managing the techno-friendly resources including technical assistance in LMSs design, teacher training, and material development. Although outsourcing of educational services sometimes understood as ‘businessification’ of schooling (Bates, Choi & Kim, 2019), it has been widely adopted as a ‘tested solution’ to many educational problems in many countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong SAR of China.

Enabling teacher agency

There needs a ‘transformation from within’ to meet the challenges generated by this global crisis and a shift from the traditional ‘banking model of education’ (Freire, 1970). Teachers should be prepared for fostering their self-reflexivity and responsibility in shaping their actions in their social contexts. Although teacher agency has been underestimated in the educational contexts of the countries with developing economies, it has been observed that teachers can make the change, provided that they are exposed to an all-enabling environment, both through institutional and professional support. Teachers as reflective practitioners and professional decision-makers (Borg, 2008), also as insiders of the learning process, should be encouraged to come up with their strategies to meet their contextualised learning requirements. The current crisis has also taught us that “the one-size-fits-all” type of blanket strategies, mostly drawn from the global-north contexts, are no longer relevant. In the case of Nepal, owing to its wider demographic diversities such as socio-economic status, language backgrounds, geographical situatedness and cultural orientations,  the strategies formed at the federal level will be less likely to succeed requiring greater role of the local government in taking actions to put the policies into practices. In having so, more localised research-supported strategies for maximising teachers’ agentic actions are the must. Teachers are the forefront fighters whenever there is a learning crisis.

Enabling autonomous learning conditions

The transformations can emerge from our actions based on our ideologies and self-regulated efforts to prepare our learners for their life-long learning. The current centralised curriculum development and implementation process have been a problem-posing condition as it does not prepare the learners to be the innovators and self-regulators. The teachers and students are waiting for the state agencies to avail the textbooks for them to start the pedagogies. The curriculum needs to recognise and validate teacher and learner agency in shaping their localised learning environment. The COVID-19 has taught us about making the change from within, not necessarily waiting for some externally sourced interventions facilitating us to transform our professional rituals.

Therefore, it is essential to enable our teachers and students to create their autonomous learning conditions by:

  • Developing and providing them with the simplified digital learning programmes
  • Accelerating local governments’ engagement on developing learning materials at the micro-level
  • Streamlining non-governmental organisations towards facilitating the technical requirements, and
  • Supporting parents to educate (or facilitate the learning of) their children.

These strategies are rightly doable to manage and enable autonomous learning conditions at the grassroots level. However, at the same time, none (teachers, students, and parents) should be the victim of the circumstances like the current crisis. Teachers, students, parents, and the local level governmental and non-governmental agencies can be engaged in supporting the children to learn. It can be done by bringing all of them together with complementary roles in scaffolding design by enabling innovative learning environments. For instance, the development partners working in the education sectors can provide the local governments with emergency funding opportunities, and parents of each learner can support learning by engaging them in the family affairs, rituals, and daily chores.

Embracing technology: A blended mode of learning

Despite the well-articulated ICT enhancement policies of the government since the beginning of the 21st century in Nepal, the use of technology in teaching and learning contexts is still in its infancy, particularly in the public education system (Rana & Rana, 2020). However, it is also important that we should be able to grab the highest-level advantage out of the use of technology in teaching and learning, which is very much a core part of learning in this digital era. It should also be noted that technology alone is not a panacea for compensating all kinds of learning gaps, as it is just a tool or a medium to facilitate learning. Therefore, the best feasible way for all learning conditions is to develop a justifiable blend of face-to-face and online (virtual) learning. Although media particularly social media like Facebook and twitter are covered by discourses of the use of ICT  that would do everything possible, I believe that it is just a good friend of humans and that human values the kids need now are best transferrable and learned through direct human contact and interaction in a comfortable zone. In our educating system, we should be able to ensure that technology is used to integrate the aspects of our indigeneity of knowledge, cultures, values, and worldviews. Moreover, it is essential to include local epistemologies, heterogeneity, the multiplicity of values, and pluralism to make everyone feel owned.

From the above discussion, I come to a holistic picture of the transformation required as presented in figure 1.

Figure 1: A model for school transformation

Figure 1 provides a holistic approach to innovations in schooling in such a way that teachers, parents, and the social institutions can actively engage with their agency in the learning conditions that teachers promote autonomy, indigenous pedagogies, and professional development opportunities. A culturally responsive environment that incorporates technology will lead to greater success in meeting our 21st-century learning needs.

Conclusion

This reflection reiterates that evidence-based policymaking for the transformation in Nepal’s education system is essential to prepare our students for a better future, in such a way that our schools remain the “places of mutual respect and a place for understanding human differences and opposing viewpoints” (Arnove, 1994, p. 211) along with their equal access to learning opportunities. We have to be able to institutionalise our indigenous pedagogies that enable our students to equally participate in the learning process. The adoption of technology in teaching and learning might also contribute to foster such inequalities differently, as technology has a double-edged effect. On the one hand, it has created an unequal learning opportunity, and on the other, it has been established as the only alternative mode of learning available during this crisis. All that requires a coherent policy framework that consistently facilitates and controls the local innovations with stronger visions and valuing on teachers. We have a lot to learn from Singapore, where “talk less, learn more” is the core principle of teaching (Hogan, 2014).

 

Mr Prem Prasad Poudel is currently a PhD scholar at The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. He has worked as a lecturer of English Education at Mahendra Ratna Campus, Tribhuvan University, Nepal for more than a decade. Mr Poudel is a well-established as a teacher educator, teacher trainer and material writer in the field of ELT in Nepal. He has presented papers and published articles in the renowned national and international journals such as Journal of NELTA and Current Issues in Language Planning, respectively. Previously, Mr Poudel also served as the secretary of the Central Executive Committee of NELTA.

References

Al-Samarrai, S., Gangwar, M. & Gala, P. (2020).  The Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education financing.  World Bank, Washington, DC.

Arnove, R. F. (1994). Education as contested terrain: The case of Nicaragua: 1979–1993. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Bates, A., Choi, T. H., & Kim, Y. (2019). Outsourcing education services in South Korea, England, and Hong Kong: a discursive institutionalist analysis. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2019.1614431

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder.

Ghimire, B. (2020, May 29). The national budget fails to prioritise education, experts say.
https://tkpo.st/2AiSQCZ

Guenette, J. D. (2020). Global economy deepest hit by recession in 80 years despite massive stimulus measures. https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/global-economy-hit-deepest-recession-80-years-despite-massive-stimulus-measures.

Hogan, D. (2014). Why is Singapore’s school system so successful, and is it a model for the west?. The Conversation (12th February). https://theconversation.com/why-is-singapores-school-system-so-successful-and-is-it-a-model-for-the-west-22917

Rana, K., & Rana, K. (2020). ICT Integration in Teaching and Learning Activities in Higher Education: A Case Study of Nepal’s Teacher Education. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Technology, 8(1), 36-47. http://dx.doi.org/10.17220/mojet.2020.01.003

Roy, A. (2020). The pandemic is a portal. Financial Times (3rd April). www.ft.com/content/10d8f 5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca.

 

Cite as: Poudel, P. (2020, July). Transforming school education: Learning from COVID-19 and pathways ahead. https://eltchoutari.com/2020/07/transforming-school-education-learning-from-covid-19-and-pathways-ahead/

Issues and possible options for teachers: A COVID-19 pandemic perspective

EducationInEmergency, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Technology, ,
S M Akramul Kabir

COVID-19 context

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges in every sphere of our lives and education is not out of it. With schools shut across the world, millions of children have had to adapt to new types of learning. This resulted in the largest “online movement” in the history of education with approximately billions of children around the world became homebound, together with their parents and extended families. Recently, a report of CNN has confirmed that even though the COVID-19 situation becomes stable, several universities in the USA have decided to consider the possibility that in-person classes may not resume until 2021. During this crisis, everything has happened so fast that it does not seem realistic to adopt a holistic solution that is easy to implement, and that works for everyone (Moorhouse, 2020). The pandemic is a monster situation to deal with, but we can tackle it following a prophylactic approach. So, I inspire individual solutions based on contextual needs.

The whole world has witnessed a paradigm shift in its teaching-learning-assessment process recently. So, the developing countries are no exception. For instance, in Bangladesh, irrespective of all levels, teachers have started teaching online despite several challenges. The government has also encouraged to go online to continue the teaching-learning process of the country during the pandemic. Teachers use different platforms to teach online. As there is a government directive, the primary and secondary teachers of government schools use Bangladesh Television (BTV) as a platform to teach virtually. The BTV announces the schedule of classes on different topics before the live session so that students can learn whether or not the class lesson is relevant to their level of study. In this regard, non-government schools are free from governmental directives. So, non-government schools have multiple platforms to conduct virtual classes apart from BTV. Most of the schools use Zoom or Google Classroom as their online teaching platforms although there are several challenges, such as lack of uninterrupted power supply with continuous access to the internet, unavailability of digital devices for each student, and the unavailability of well-trained teachers to conduct the online classes smoothly. In this regard, there is a huge possibility that the current paradigm shift of teaching virtually may exacerbate inequalities in education between developed and developing countries across the globe. In practically, in the post-pandemic context of education, online classes may become a regular thing in parallel to in-person classes depending on how the situation emerges. So, it’s important to get it right and make sure that no group of students is being left behind in the process. I have tailored some of the practical issues to conduct online classes in developing countries.

Access to ICT

One of those major challenges to the teachers of developing countries is access to the online mode of education to conduct classes virtually. Most of the students in the developing countries lack technical support such as unavailability of the internet or mobile device with a data pack or Wi-Fi connection to be connected to the virtual classes. OECD (2020) reported that a gap is seen across countries and between income brackets within countries in terms of students’ struggle to participate in digital learning via reliable internet access and/or technology. The report showed that 95% of students in developed countries such as Switzerland, Norway, and Austria have a computer to use for their schoolwork, whereas only 34% of students in Indonesia have a computer with internet access to do their schoolwork. So, it can be assumed that access to a computer with internet access may be similar in other developing countries such as Bangladesh or Nepal. Again, the number of computers owned by families, especially in the rural areas of the developing countries are presumably lower than the urban areas, which can have a negative influence on the whole online education. Moreover, in the developing countries, to conduct the classes online, the cost of the internet or mobile data-pack is beyond the reach for many students as well as the institutions. So, online teaching to all the students is a far cry from what is intended in the developing countries, such as in Bangladesh.

Willingness to communicate online

Another huge challenge to online teaching is the learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in the extramural digital environment. As most of the students in developing countries are not familiar with digital platforms, many of them are not enthusiastic about the transition to online learning. Students’ lack of online experience may promote fear and lead to their participation uncertainty. The fear can also cause withdrawal or resistance to their online participation. Therefore, it is a huge challenge for the teachers to remove this barrier to engaging his/her students virtually for the online teaching-learning process. A teacher should know how to apply different theories on virtual interaction such as activity theory of learning. Only then teachers may be able to engage the students in an interactive mode. If teachers can do so, it can be a great opportunity for them to teach interactively online in a real-time situation.

Online collaboration

As we know that the classroom situation in developing countries is more or less is lecture-based. In most Bangladeshi schools, teachers are usually the speakers or controllers of the classroom and the students are passive recipients of the course contents. So, making a collaborative and participatory classroom in a face-to-face situation has always been a challenge for the teachers. However, at present, the teachers from the developing countries have the opportunity to create a collaborative class online as several researchers (Rana, 2018; Shaista, 2018) found that students become more participatory in digital classes than physical classes. In Bangladesh, despite various obstacles, about 80% of the students in a university have expressed interest in joining the online activities (“ [Shorkari Bisshobiddaloi] সরকারি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে,” 2020).

Motivation for online learning

Teachers and students harbour their motivation for learning. So, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many students may lack the psychological readiness for online instruction. Even the teachers themselves may lack motivation for online teaching. Recently, in Bangladesh, the Education Minister pointed out that most of the teachers in the government institutions lack a positive mindset and the motivation to shift in-person classes on virtual mode during the COVID-19 pandemic (“[Shorkari Bisshobiddaloi] সরকারি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে,” 2020). Students may also have misconceptions concerning online learning and its outcomes. They may consider this ‘paradigm shift’ as temporary resulting in their lack of motivation towards online learning. So, it is the responsibility of teachers to motivate the students that online instruction is necessary for collaborative learning and not a substitute to merely keep students busy until the pandemic subsides. Teachers also have to motivate students to shift focus away from the emotional consequences of COVID-19 to more personal investment in learning and achievement.

In this regard, I can share my experience. I have been running ELT classes on ZOOM since March 2020 for my students. I run three classes per week for this group. After overcoming the initial teething troubles related to technology and the new mode of teaching, participants have settled down and attended online classes regularly. I have motivated them to embrace this new teaching-learning situation. However, it is surfaced that the prevailing online mode of education (both public and private) is undergoing some teething troubles to adapt online exams and evaluation procedure for obvious reasons I have referred to. So, it is too early to comment on how successful the online teaching-learning activities have been until it continues at least for a considerable time.

Nonetheless, it has already been reported in different newspapers that there are more challenges to conduct online classes in rural schools due to the issue of urban-rural contextual dichotomy. However, my argument is that digital tools can be used as a catalyst to remove the urban-rural disparity and to put all the students on equal footing, then distance or institution won’t be a matter! The government just needs to take the initiative to create a level playing field. If we can ensure the internet for everyone with a digital device and train up the primary and secondary teachers to pick up digital literacy, more than half of the work will be done to transform our education online. Other petty technical barriers can be dealt with accordingly. Moreover, third world countries like Bangladesh, where face-to-face education is considered as a reliable but hefty medium, can take the current situation as a good opportunity to change its typical lecture-based classroom into a collaborative online classroom.

The upcoming world is going to based on digital platforms so do the educational skills. Without digital literacy, it may be difficult for students to survive in the academic arena. Therefore, after the post-pandemic reality, all schools should be equipped with digital support so that face-to-face teaching can be underpinned by the online learning scope. Without access to the world of websites, it is not possible to enter into the ocean of unlimited knowledge. By ensuring access to the body of world knowledge, there is a possibility to make a knowledgeable and techno-savvy generation to transform the country.

So, it is necessary to train the teachers with different online learning models (such as TPACK framework) as they are the main players to implement the process. The training should prepare the teachers so that they can interweave the three essential sources of knowledge  ̶ technology, pedagogy and content to facilitate synchronous online learning to the students through a collaborative approach. All the students should be ensured a digital device with better internet connectivity so that they can have the access to the internet to browse any particular academic site related to their course contents or course lessons anytime and in anyplace. Therefore, the learning will be ubiquitous, no matter a student stays in rural areas or urban areas, and learners will be able to learn at their own pace. However, the major challenge is left with the policymakers as they need to figure out how to reach each of the student irrespective of rural and urban contexts. On the one hand, the COVID-19 has stagnated the whole world, and on the other hand, it allows us to think about the transformation of our education system for the future.

S M Akramul Kabir is an Assistant Professor of English under the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education, Bangladesh. He has just completed his Doctoral journey and is waiting to be a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a PhD degree. He has taught English to both local and international students for more than 12 years. His areas of research interest include listening skill for language education, discourse analysis, learning theories, and ICT in language education.

References

Moorhouse, B. L. (2020). Adaptations to a face-to-face initial teacher education course

‘forced’ online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Journal of Education for Teaching. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1755205

OECD. (2020). A helping hand: Education responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

https://oecdedutoday.com/education-responding-coronavirus-pandemic/

Rana, K. B. (2018). ICT in rural primary schools in Nepal: Context and teachers’

experiences (Doctoral dissertation). https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/457

Shaista, R. (2018). The effect of training in Mobile Assisted Language Learning on attitude, beliefs and practices of tertiary students in Pakistan (Doctoral dissertation). https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/457

সরকারি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে অনলাইন ক্লাসে বাধা মানসিকতা [Shorkari Bisshobiddaloie online classes badhamanoshikota]. (2020, May 30). bdnews24.com. https://m.bdnews24.com/bn/detail/bangladesh/1764114?fbclid=IwAR0gUCM4_SzRp-nkzhkYp1GCixfSOGlQihOaWTrR-7JBMMRPhx0If9Xf21Y

 

Cite as: Kabir, S.M. A. (2020). Issues and possible options for teachers: A COVID-19 pandemic perspective. https://eltchoutari.com/2020/07/issues-and-possible-options-for-teachers-a-covid-19-pandemic-perspective/

Crisis, teaching-learning via alternative means and ground reality

EducationInEmergency, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Technology, ,
Pushpa Raj Paudel

Introduction

COVID-19 has been one of the critical human crises ever recorded after Plague of Justinian (541-542), the Black Death (1346-53), Spanish flu (1818-1819), Asian flu (1957-1958), HIV/ AIDS (2005) and Swine Flu (2009). Following the advice of WHO about maintaining physical distance to control the possible spread of the virus, the government of Nepal had announced the nation-wide lock down, and the four-month long lockdown has been recently waived though the educational institutions seem to shut down for some more weeks. During the ongoing crisis, the venture taken by some of the proactive teachers to continue teaching-learning activity to the extent possible for them and to engage themselves in continuous professional development is appreciable.

It was, undoubtedly painful for me to be detached from my students and the classroom for a long time. However, what made me satisfied was the constant contact with the students and colleagues via different digital means. Although the online classes were not as effective as the physical classes in the beginning, they remained a useful alternative to practise teaching-learning activity during the lockdown period. So, in this article, I have attempted to explore the ground reality of teaching learning from a survey and critically reflect on my teaching-learning and professional development practices including my feelings during the lockdown.

Digital divide deteriorating teaching-learning activity

Problem with the technology more or less exists in every nook and cranny of the world but the digital divide in our context seems bigger. For example, Sharma (2020) reports that only 8% of households and 12% of total schools have broadband internet facility in Nepal. Although 90% of the population use mobile phones, the majority of them do not have the internet facility. Similarly, Rana, Greenwood and Fox‐Turnbull (2019) show that only 72% of the total population of Nepal have the internet access and the majority of them (95%) are mobile data users, and mobile data is too expensive to use for educational purpose. Moreover, the urban dwellers have better access to the internet facility (not in the reach of all though). Indeed, this kind of disparity is present in the online classes that I have been taking at present, where there is the presence of less than 50% students. The condition is even worse in the case of the rural part of Nepal, which is waiting for the development of the internet infrastructures and access to web technology.

Professional development in the crisis

Although teachers are not physically present in the classrooms, some of the active teachers are busy taking the online classes or continuing teaching-learning via other alternative means. On the other hand, during the lockdown period, various national and international organisations were active in organising e-conferences and webinars for teachers’ professional development. I also participated in some of the webinars organised by Cambridge University Press, Webinar Series: British Council and NELTA, Continuous Proficiency Development Institute (CPDI), Thailand and TESOL Virtual Convention and English Language Expo 2020.

Having got opportunities to participate in these webinars and conferences, I was acquainted with new trends and ideas of English language teaching. So, they proved to be highly insightful for me to gain and share new knowledge and skills. I have used the learnt knowledge and skills in making the lessons interactive while teaching in the online environment. Moreover, I also utilised the crisis for creative writing and reflections, and also used them in my online classes to encourage my students to compose creative writing. History shows that there has always been the emergence of new literary figures and a new field to work with by the established figures due to the situation created during and post crises. So, as a teacher, we can encourage and support our students to express their emotions, feelings and experiences through creative writing or other forms of arts, which can help them to release their tensions and have a sense of achievement in the form of creation.

Teaching-learning practice during the crisis

Exploring the ground reality

Like other teachers, I always enjoy having students around me, but the ongoing health crisis caused havoc in teaching-learning activity with the temporary closure of the educational institutions globally, where Nepal couldn’t be exception. Some of the schools in Nepal, especially in the urban setting, have run the online classes by using different digital apps where there is internet facility and parents are capable enough to manage basic technologies for online classes. However, student participation in such online classes are observed low.

It is commonly reported that there is less student participation in the online classes and the delivery of lesson also has not been as effective as the face-to-face mode. Therefore, I wanted to understand if other teachers have similar problems. I conducted a survey by using the Google form about teaching-learning activity during the pandemic, where 48 teachers participated. The data showed that the majority of teachers faced the problem of low students’ participation. Additionally, some other problems mentioned by them were related to technology and learning environment like unstable or lack of the internet access, frequent power cut and learners’ unfavourable learning environment at home. Likewise, lack of apt digital contents were reported as another challenge. Similarly, challenges were reported on students’ involvement and learning facilitation like lack of students’ attention, disturbances at the students’ end, low participation in English course and lack of student-centred activities. In addition, the teachers also reported to have challenges in assessment including the lack of immediate feedback to students.

The responses of this brief survey indicate that online teaching cannot replace the physical classroom in Nepal immediately as there exist major challenges like technological preparedness, online pedagogical innovation, lack of digital contents and assessment. In such situation, the government in collaboration with public and private sector should come up with immediate strategies to reach students and also should envision to bridge the digital gaps in future.

Facing the crisis as a teacher following alternative ways

While some of us are taking initiative to run online classes to the limited number of students having with access to the stable internet and digital devices, Dawadi, Giri and Simkhada (2020) argue there exists a huge challenge to give equitable access to e-learning to all the students in Nepal and a swift move to e-learning will further widen the disparity gaps, depriving a large number of students from inclusion. This study, therefore, indicates that we need to adopt different modalities to reach to different students based on the means of connection they have. For instance, we can provide offline materials to students having mobile phones and computers without the internet connection. On the other hand, for the students having neither the internet nor the digital devices, we should reach via radios and televisions as some of the teachers have already taken this initiative. For example, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and local bodies are telecasting and broadcasting educational programmes via radios and TVs though people are skeptical about the effectiveness of such teaching-learning. On the other hand, to reach the students of difficult topography, we should deliver the print materials in coordination with local government. Moreover, teachers can also reach them and engage in teaching-learning by maintaining physical distance in their own locality.

Crisis and some food for thought on our practices

The present health catastrophe, I believe, is questioning our education system and has compelled us to rethink the way we are delivering public services like education and health. Our existing education system emphasises more on competition, i.e. producing a successful person is getting priority over helping a person become a good human being. With the same token, society gives value to the rich and this has led them to achieve more power. The existing gap between the rich and the poor is constantly increasing, which is visible during the crisis, where the poor suffered the most and the marginalised and minority people were much more affected. Education and health services are highly dominated by the private sector, which were already out of the access of the working-class people, seemed more unwelcoming during the crisis for many private hospitals denied treating the patients suffering from the corona virus. This was the failure of the present neoliberal society which emphasise privatisation, marketisation, and deregulation in various services including education and health sectors diminishing the nation’s role in these sectors of fundamental necessities.

Summing up

Similar to English proverb “there is a silver lining in every black cloud”, I also tried to make the best ultilisation of the time I had in the crisis. I first focused on my professional development, especially ways to teach students online effectively. Then, I have been using the new knowledge, ideas and skills I gained from it in my own online classes. Now, my students in the online classes are no more passive listeners but the active co-participants of the teaching-learning activity. I use Easy Class and Google Classroom to manage my online classes. Likewise, to make the online lessons interactive, I use various digital apps and tools, such as online quiz using quizizz, Kahoot, ProProfs, Mentimeter, interactive videos using playposit and padlet to ensure learners’ participation in the online class and Google forms for feedback and for online test. After lockdown, I am confident that I am going to make visible changes in the lesson delivery in the physical class and the blended mode of teaching and evaluation. Moreover, I feel that the crisis in general has taught us an important lesson that Nepal also should envision alternative ways of teaching-learning by using various digital technologies.

Pushpa Raj Paudel, an M. Phil scholar at Nepal Open University, is a faculty in Sainik Mahavidyalaya, Bhaktapur. Mr. Paudel has interests in creative writing, teachers’ professional development, critical pedagogy and translation. Mr. Paudel, a life member of NELTA, has presented papers in various national and international conferences and webinars, and has published articles in various magazines and newspapers.

References

Dawadi, S., Giri, R. A., & Simkhada, P. (2020). Impact of COVID-19 on the education sector in Nepal: Challenges and coping strategies. Sage Submissions. Preprint. doi:https://doi.org/10.31124/advance.12344336.v1

Rana, K., Greenwood, J., & Fox‐Turnbull, W. (2019). Implementation of Nepal’s education policy in ICT: Examining current practice through an ecological model. The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 86(2), 1-16. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/isd2.12118

Sharma, L. (2020 May 09; retrieved 2020 June 7). Online education increases disparity [translated from Nepali to English]. Nayapatrika. https://jhannaya.nayapatrikadaily.com/news-details/970/2020-05-09

WHO (2020). WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/

 

Cite as: Paudel, P. R. (2020, July). Crisis, teaching-learning via alternative means and ground reality. https://eltchoutari.com/2020/07/crisis-teaching-learning-via-alternative-means-and-ground-reality/

Significance of parents’ involvement in children’s learning in crisis and ever

Education in General, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, , ,
Babita Sharma Chapagain
Introduction

“Children learn what they live”. It is one of my favourite poems written by Dorothy Law Nolte. Throughout my 15 years of work in education field in Nepal, this poem always reminds me of my ongoing quest, which is to understand what children should experience at home. Facilitating children’s learning at home and empowering parents to support in their children’s learning is proved to be more important at the moment where the schools are closed. Therefore, this article offers some practical ways to bridge the gap between what theoretical knowledge children acquire inside four walls of the classrooms and what experiential learning opportunities parents can offer at home. It discusses the importance of educating parents regarding how they can contribute to their children’s learning at home and school.

Importance of parent education: My reflection

Academic achievement of a child in Nepal is mostly based on theoretical knowledge. However, some exceptional schools provide students with good environment and ample opportunities for experiential learning. In any case, schools alone cannot help individuals achieve success in life. As a teacher educator, I have visited more than twenty districts across Nepal where I got opportunities to work with various primary and secondary schools. During my visit, I was interested to explore the relationship between parents and schools, and parents involvement in their children’s learning. Most school communities understood that parents involvement means forming a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) that holds meetings sometimes only to have general discussions regarding students’ assignments, stationary, school infrastructure and so on. It was disheartening to notice that most of the schools did not pay any attention to the fact that parents can play an important role contributing to their children’s learning and overall growth at home and at school and learning can go beyond school boundary. All parents including those who are illiterate can be trained to be the ideal contributor.

While working for Rato Bangala Foundation some years ago, I was involved in a five-year long child-centred teacher training programme implemented in around six hundred schools in far- western Nepal. At the end of the project, we visited many cluster schools for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Many teachers in those schools expressed their concerns that it was challenging to improve children’s learning outcomes without the parents’ support. They reported that the children who were irregular at school were either busy in household chores, for example looking after their siblings, or working in the field. There were times when students stayed absent for a week or more even on occasions such as a distant relative’s wedding or a minor ritual in their neighbourhood. The teachers further complaint that many parents did not care about their children’s dress up, regular diet, health and hygiene. To our surprise, some children, especially girls, even used to bring their younger siblings to their classrooms to look, which would distract the whole class. What a teacher shared with me about a parent’s view, still hovers around my mind, “What’s the significance of sending my child to school? He can rather be a helping hand at home!” It was evident that many parents were illiterate and immature for good parenting and taking responsibilities of their children. That trend of parents to be irresponsible was not just because of poverty, child marriage, family break ups and lack of education but mainly because it sadly became part of the community culture. An important lesson learnt from that experience was that parents education and involvement in children’s learning plays a vital role in the learning achievement of children. In response to the findings of the monitoring and evaluation process, our organization then began to work intensively to run series of workshops for educating parents. To the best of my knowledge, there is a limited attention paid to educating parents to support Nepal government’s initiation of parent involvement and I feel proud to be a part of that movement.

In yet another experience, while working for an organization, we managed to incorporate parent education as a component in our training programme run in a mountainous district in the eastern region. I found it challenging to motivate headteachers and teachers to spare time to run workshops for parents on good parenting and involving parents in their children’s learning. However, once we did start working with parents, we were amazed to see the result. Parents easily accepted the change and happily began to participate in various school activities. For example, some parents visited their child’s classroom and shared the skills they knew. They set up a trend to read with their children at home and even those parents who could not read began to listen to their children reading to them or have meaningful interactions with them. It was a successful practice that helped to improve the parents’ relationship with the schools. Consequently, children began to take library books back home regularly, fill in the reading logs, try bringing healthy snacks to school, and most importantly they began to look quite clean, happy, and cheerful. Moreover, they looked very proud when their parents made an effort to visit their classrooms and shared any of their life skills ranging from the skill of brewing tea to kitchen gardening.

Parents’ contribution at home while schools remain closed

Finally, building upon my learning about the significance of parents’ involvement in children’s education and addressing to the current scenario of school closure due to the pandemic, our team have developed a set of guidelines for parents for our partner schools. Here, I have briefly shared some of the steps that I think parents can take away to guide their children:

Raising awareness about ecology: Parents can explain with an example, how human actions affect the environment and living organisms around them giving an example how throwing rubbish in a clean river can pollute water and poison fish which in turn can lead to various diseases such as cancer, when consumed. They should teach children how they can contribute to save mother earth from home by engaging them in the process of:

  • practicing to reduce wastage
  • making compost from food waste, and planting trees and flowers
  • recycling, reusing or reducing plastics
  • loving and caring animals in their surrounding

Boosting a child’s social skills: These tips can help parents to develop the social skills in their children. Therefore, parents can be requested to;

  • Spend about 15 minutes of quality time with their kids, telling them stories and biographies, reading aloud and trying  to use good words at home learning to teach new words.
  • Try to interact with their children in their mother tongue.
  • Always listen to their child and acknowledge what he/she has to say.
  • Showcase good social behaviour such as showing respect and speaking politely to others as the children are good at imitating us.

Raising physical awareness: Parents can follow these simple instructions to help their children achieve overall physical wellness:

  • Prepare healthy food as much as possible for children avoiding regular junk food. A balanced diet is important for wellness.
  • Teach them good personal hygiene such as washing hands regularly using soap, brushing teeth, wearing clean clothes, and keeping nails trimmed.
  • Teach them basic movement skills such as catching, hitting, jumping, throwing, and running. They can actively play games with their children and make them practice focusing more on participation and enjoyment rather than winning.

Help children grow spiritually and emotionally: Parents can focus on these tips to attain proper spiritual and emotional growth:

  • Spend some quiet time with their children in nature and meditate with them.
  • Teach them to express love and gratitude to nature and the community.
  • Demonstrate how to solve issues without becoming violent and teach that we should control our emotions.
  • Teach them various acts from a young age such as making their bed after waking up, thanking someone for their kindness or service. This is to help them develop good habits for their future.

Parents should always try and identify their child’s strengths, abilities and interests in particular areas of learning, i.e. sports, music, arts, language, nature, mathematics, society, culture, and so on. Also, they can work with the people in the community to improvise their daily activities to incorporate in their child’s learning when needed. One can always consult elderly people from their community how various skills, culture, and traditions were passed being transferred from their ancestors and see how they can adapt the ideas to their teaching.

Conclusion

The present havoc created by pandemic and the closure of educational institutions around the world has compelled us to redesign the school-centred teaching learning and institutionalize the role of parents particularly in facilitating children’s learning at home. The joint effort of schools and parents will definitely produce better learning outcomes of the children. Therefore, it is a prime time to work on parents education so that children can get better academic support at home too. Moreover, the aware parents can also equip their children with important life skills, which can help them to fit well in this century. Although these aspects are addressed across the school curriculum, in the present context, children’s learning inside the classrooms is not connected with what they experience at home. The educators, on the other hand, should create and make a meaningful connection between teaching learning in the classroom and activities at home. Likewise, apart from contributing at home, parents’ regular participation in the school programmes is very crucial and they should be encouraged to spare some participating in the schools events, interaction and activities. Parents are the best educators who can provide their children with an opportunity to learn by experiencing above mentioned fundamental skills.

 

Babita Sharma Chapagain is associated with Integrative Education Research and Recreation Centre and also works part time in Himalayan Trust Nepal. She earned her MA in ELT from Kathmandu University and completed another degree from the University of Warwick as a Hornby Scholar. She is interested to work in the areas of classroom based research and integrated education.

Cite as: Chapagain, B. S. (2020, July). Significance of parents’ involvement in children’s learning in crisis and ever. https://eltchoutari.com/2020/07/significance-of-parents-involvement-in-childrens-learning-in-crisis-and-ever/

Teaching virtually in COVID-19 pandemic: A reflection of a university professor

Education in General, Reflections, Teacher's Experience/anecdotes, Technology, , , ,
Tikaram Poudel, PhD

Introduction

In this write-up, I reflect on my experience of shifting my academic activities from office to home, and from a face-to-face mode of delivery to a virtual one. When the Government of Nepal announced a complete lockdown on 23 March 2020 to prevent the people from the spread of Corona virus infection (Pradhan, 2020), all my academic activities came to a standstill. I am teaching three courses this semester; working as a member of the editorial board for Journal of Education and Research; supervising dissertations of Master of Philosophy students; and performing other administrative duties mostly related to the University Grants Commission, Nepal and my institution. A sudden change from free and independent being on the 23rd of March to a captive like one on the 24th of March with the inception of lockdown completely changed my physical as well as mental activities. Like all my fellow human beings across the globe, I also started living with unknown fear and anxiety.

We are locked down. The streets are deserted. Departmental stores are closed. A few corner shops are still open. People rush to these shops. Everyone has a long list to buy. People buy rice, pulses, flour, etc. Everyone standing there is not sure to get what he/she wants. Stocks are running out. It has been about a week since we had our vegetables. Everyone is masked. You do not recognize even your neighbour. People do not talk to each other. They have forgotten to smile. Everybody is in a hurry. Uncertainty is there. I remembered the medicines. I had to procure essential medicines. I rushed to the hospital pharmacy. I sanitized my hands. I showed the prescription to the pharmacist; he had a snap of it with the camera of his mobile phone. He showed me the amount in his calculator. I asked for the usual 10% discount on life-saving medicines. He looked at me as if I just arrived from the Mars.

Lockdown completely affected my daily activities. I began to wake up late. I changed the way of life. I gradually got adjusted to the lockdown style. I revived regular television watching after fifteen years. Watching television became my everyday routine. The harrowing news of Italy, Spain often terrified me. The focus gradually shifted to the USA, not because the situation in Italy and Spain were improving but because the conditions in the USA were getting worse with the 45000 + death tolls. I do not know much about this virus; I am not a medical professional. I am now familiar with COVID-19 Pandemic vocabulary like ‘social distancing’, ‘washing hands’, ‘flattening the curve’, ‘quarantine’ , ‘isolation’, etc. and many dos and don’ts. While writing this, many more people are being infected and more are dying. I do not know how many more will get infected and lose their life by the time I conclude this write up.

In a situation like this, along with my university colleagues, I decided to go for online classes. I am concerned with how we teachers are adjusting to new environment posed by this virus shifting our mode of delivery from face-to-face mode to ‘hopping online’ to use Tse’s term (Tse, 2020). This is the time we are passing through. Although lockdown was implemented from 24th of March 2020, regular university activities got affected from the third week of March. We stopped thumb signature and started signing attendance in a register. The canteen was almost empty. We already started getting terrifying news of deadly virus. The Government asked to close everything but essential services. Our university closed regular face-to-face classes. And the news from across the globe became scary the week before the lockdown. We sensed the situation would get worse. Some of my colleagues tested online classes and we shared our experience with each other in a virtual meeting through https://meet.google.com/_meet on Saturday afternoon. After sharing the experience of test classes, we decided to continue the classes online.

Moving from face-to-face to ‘hopping online’ delivery mode

Teaching online has not been completely new for me. My training as a linguist and, particularly using computer software for analyzing linguistic data, taught me handle the situations of teaching online with minimum of adjustment. I have been teaching students through both face-to-face and online and distance learning (ODL) modes for five years now. Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, my university used the MOODLE portal for the delivery of ODL mode; the learning materials were uploaded and the students used the materials wherever they were. The MOODLE has limitations; mostly its activities are asynchronous i.e., the students do not meet the teacher in the same time. Teachers rarely have direct discussion with the students. In our context, the students who were delivered through MOODLE hardly completed the courses. All my courses were uploaded on the MOODLE portal but students rarely visited them. However, I was planning something different from the MOODLE. I had my first online class with Masters of English Language Teaching students. This semester I am teaching the course Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis. My usual face-to-face class begins with the presentation from one of the students. Each student is assigned a particular topic to present to the class on the very first day of session. We were still learning all the features of https://meet.google.com/_meet and my student presented her paper without sharing to everyone. However, she did well.

My experience of teaching students through ODL mode informed me that students are more expressive in online mode than in face-to-face mode. However, the challenge is to provide opportunity to speak to each student. Therefore, I tried to ensure everyone participate in the discussion as much as possible. For 22nd March 2020, I planned to teach Speech Event, a topic closely related to Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962), the topic I took up previous week. The first thing that I had to do was to prepare my students to recapitulate what we discussed the week before. I shared the PowerPoint slides and asked them to concentrate on two sentences there:
I christen this ship the Joseph Stalin;
I now pronounce you man and wife.

I asked them to do two things with these sentences; first change the tense of the verb into past and change the subject from first person singular to second or third person. After that I asked each of them to observe the effect on semantics. Unmuting the microphone button in meet.google, my students shared that changing the verbs into past tense and replacing the subject with second or third person would have completely different effect. Recollecting the class previous week, they also shared that ‘christen’ acts as ‘naming’ and ‘pronounce’ acts as ‘giving the bride and groom the status of husband and wife’. I told them that verbs like ‘christen’ and ‘declare’ not only say something but also refer to certain kinds of acts and such verbs are called ‘performatives’ (Austin, 1962).
After sharing their first ever-online learning experience, I asked them to identify appropriate context for each of the sentences. After a while, they came up the ideas that the appropriate context for the sentence could be; the ship is manufactured and yet to make her maiden voyage, a respectable person like mayor of the city or owner of the company is giving the name to the ship in a special function.

The appropriate context for the second sentence is: a wedding ceremony is taking place in a church and, most probably, the priest declares the bride and the groom as man and wife. These contexts refer to speech events in which individual speech acts perform various functions. In this way, in our almost two-hour class, my students analyzed several conversations between a doctor and a patient in a hospital, between a waiter and a customer in a restaurant and between a host and a guest at dinner in former’s house. Finally, each of them reflected their experience on the first ever-online class. One of them said that she lost her internet connection for a while and lost some of strands of the discussion. Others expressed they were excited as they found it very much similar to face-to-face mode of delivery. On 31 March, I had second online class with these students and we all were more equipped than before.

On 24th of March 2020, I met with third semester students of MPhil in English Language Education at five in the afternoon. I have been teaching a course on Contemporary Thoughts on English Language Education this semester. From my experience with master students, I understood that my presentation needs to be redesigned to fit in online mode of delivery. Unlike in face-to-face mode, each student is not seen on the screen, getting engaged throughout the class time is a big challenge in an online class. I redesigned my teaching items. As we competed the Module one that discussed the theoretical aspects of Post-Colonialism through face-to-face to mode, Module two was to apply the theoretical insights of Post-Colonialism to English studies. I started the class with three questions:
How many varieties of English can you think of? Can you name a few?
What particular variety of English do you speak?

What variety or varieties do you think should be considered “proper” and “correct”?
I asked them to ponder over five minutes; after five minutes I asked them to speak one minute each on any one of the questions. This made me assured that everyone is connected and participates in the discussion. I intended two major areas to cover that day: the spread of English over the ages and the concentric circles of Kacharu (Kacharu, 1985). When each of them spoke, I asked them to mute the microphone as the background noise caused disturbances. Then we discussed the spread of English in four phases: within the geographical region of present United Kingdom; America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand where majority of people speak English as first language; in the third phase, after the 17th century onwards English speakers took English to their colonies where a large number of people speak English as an additional language; and , the fourth phase, English spread because of technology, globalization and education to the countries that English speaking people never colonized. Most of the interactions concentrated the discussion on the phase III and phase IV because these two phases had direct link to our discussion on Post-Colonialism. Students enthusiastically participated in the discussion on the impact of English in our education and socio-cultural life.

Majority of the students were aware of concentric circles of Kacharu. They initiated the discussion and I intervened only when there were digressions. When the fundamental concept of Kacharu’s notion was established, I gave them ten minutes to find out three advantages and disadvantages of Kacharu’s circles in the study of varieties of English like English in Nepal. In these ten minutes they googled, discussed with each other and came up with ideas to discuss with the class. Each of them got two minutes to talk share their ideas. In this way class ended.

I spent an entire week teaching the second module of the course Trends in Applied Linguistics to the students of MPhil in English Language Education doing through block mode. The lessons were redesigned to fit in two hour teaching/ discussion sessions and one hour student’s presentation.

Students’ response on ‘hopping online’ delivery mode

Students have mixed reactions on the online classes that I have been delivering so far. In an unanimous voice, my students take these online classes very useful considering the difficult situation that the Pandemic has created. Many of them are happy that shifting to ‘hopping online’ mode of delivery saves them maintain the academic calendar without losing the academic year. Some of them took the online classes as ‘exciting’ as they are getting familiarized with the technology and enhancing ‘the virtual communication skills’. These online classes keep them ‘in track’; provide opportunities for ‘uninterrupted learning’; they are ‘as effective as face-to-face classes’; and they are ‘wonderful’ and ‘energizing’.

On the other hand, these online classes also have other side of the coin. One frequent issue that students encounter is the intermittent internet connections. Many of them get lost because very often they get disconnected to the internet and lose the flow of discussion. One of the students felt that discussing something serious without feeling the presence of the interlocutor puts him in an awkward situation. Getting used to new mode of learning from face-to-face to complete online mode needs to make them accept psychologically. They are tuned to learning in front of teachers and peers in the physical classroom and sudden shift to ‘hopping online’ mode of delivery causes them to ‘get distracted’, and these distractions lead to ‘mess up assignment’ and online mode offers ‘limited opportunities for interaction’ i.e., online classes means ‘reduced interactions’. One of the greatest disadvantages of online classes is to miss the original charm of meeting teachers and peers, the process of socialization and feeling the physical presence of someone when we are engaged in academic discussion.

In spite of these issues, reflecting on their experience on online classes, they consider these online classes are best possible options for the current situation. They also believe that they will overcome the trauma, anxiety and unknown fear and psychological state will accept the condition leading to more active learning. One of my students says that he finds difficult to concentrate on the topic while attending online classes but he thinks as time passes his nerves will align with the tune of the situation.

Conclusion

These online classes taught me several things. The way I used to get prepared for a face-to-face class is not sufficient and many things of my face-to-face class are completely irrelevant in an online class. I prepared my online classes, tested several times and reached my students. I also realized that using videos or other forms of materials require to ensure whether the tool supports these materials. Shifting from one tool to another always creates a havoc and we end up in a mess. The usual way of going to the class with a reading material and make the students read and discuss simply does not work in an online class; teachers have no way to monitor the active participation of students in the activity. In this particular area, I would love to listen from the experience of colleagues.

In these two weeks of intensive online teaching, my interactions with my students made me realize that, as a teacher, I learnt from the collective conversation with my students. To be honest, I have learned more from my students than I have taught. The questions, comments, critiques and insights of my students reshaped and challenged my academic position and such activities contributed to knowledge building. This shift to online mode has almost killed these opportunities; it may have new offers but it is too early to realize.

I deeply distressed with the ideas of some paranoids that post-corona era is the era of the death of physical classrooms and an era of revolution in online classrooms. I do not expect such radical changes in our educational system because physical contact is equally important, not only for education, but also for living. At this difficult juncture of life, I went for online because I, as a teacher, have to facilitate my students to the maximum and I did not have any other better option than going online. In the present state, I agree with young lawyer of Anton Chekhov’s story ‘The Bet’ ‘It’s better to live somehow than not to live at all’(Chekhov, 2015).

[Note: since you have come up to here reading it, please share your feeling, feedback or any question related to it in the comment box below, which will encourage the author. Thank you!]

[To cite it: Poudel, T. (2020, April 20). Teaching virtually in COVID-19 pandemic: A reflection of a university professor. [blog post]. Retrieved from: https://eltchoutari.com/2020/04/teaching-virtually-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-a-reflection-of-a-university-professor-in-nepal/]

The Author: Educated in India, Nepal and Germany, Dr Tikaram Poudel currently teaches at the Department of Language Education, School of Education Kathmandu University, Nepal. Dr Poudel is well-known for his studies on morpho-syntax and semantics of case, tense, aspect and field linguistics of South Asian languages. His studies on the interface between ergativity and individual level predication, cumulative and separative morphology and affix suspension have been well received. Recently, Dr Poudel has been concentrating on the socio-cultural impact of English on contemporary Nepalese society. 

References
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chekhov, A. (2015). The bet and other stories. (S. Koteliansky, & J. M. Murry, Trans.) Boston: John W. Luce & Co.
Kacharu, B. B. (1985). Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In R. Quirk, & H. Widdowson, English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and the literature (pp. 11-30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pradhan, T. R. (2020, March 23). Nepal goes under lockdown for a week starting 6 am Tuesday. Kathmandu. Retrieved April 7, 2020, from https://kathmandupost.com
Tse, J. (2020, March 19). Letter to students past and present. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/42264494: https://www.academia.edu

E-learning is only a means but not a replacement of physical classroom – Dr. Rana

Education in General, Interview, Teacher Education, Teaching Tips, , , ,
Karna Rana, PhD

Dr. Karna Rana is an Academic Coordinator [MPhil in English] at Open University Nepal and Lecturer of English at Gramin Adarsha Multiple Campus. Dr Rana facilitates teacher training for teachers and students in and about online classes and resources. He earned his PhD degree in ICT in Education at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He did an MA in Education (E-based learning; Inclusive education; Managing teaching and learning; Research Methodology), from the University of Bedfordshire, UK. He is one of the members of the editorial board of ELT Chourati. He has authored and co-authored several academic papers and research articles nationally and internationally. He has launched different online-based training and workshop to contribute to Nepal’s ICT enhancement procedure. His interest areas include ICT in education, digital literacy, research and education.

Our Choutari editor, Ganesh Kumar Bastola, has talked to Dr Rana about COVID-19, pandemic pedagogy and its impact in and around Nepal specifically in education and explored some useful strategies to enhance online classes and resources during pandemic. Now, here is the exclusive interview for you.

1. What can be the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in our education system?

Well, if we review the history of educational development and the impact of such crisis like World War I and II on social transformation, the rise of industrial education value dominated neo-classical education value and it gradually resulted in capitalism. Before these wars, work efficiency used to be valued more than what education qualification someone had. The current industrial education system that came out of British and American neoliberal ideologies seems to be outdated as it is eventually failing to fix issues of this crisis. If the pandemic continues throughout this year, the world will be in an economic and humanitarian crisis. Many schools and universities will be shut down. Nepal will also experience it if the situation lasts long.

2. Since the educational institutions are shut down and the ‘face-to-face’ mode is put to halt. What can be the alternatives to reach students, especially school students in this crisis?

Since the world is in lockdown, several universities and schools mostly in developed countries have switched their traditional physical classrooms to online classes or distance learning mode. Unfortunately, the majority of schools and universities might not be prepared for it. Let’s observe the context of Nepal. Except for Nepal Open University, an online university, all other universities are not fully prepared to go online. It is unlikely to move schools to online in this situation as the majority of people live outside the range of broadband internet. However, we can utilise a few potential technologies like television and radio to deliver limited courses and engage students in possible projects.

3. How can we ensure and track the learning of school students if we adopt alternatives to educate them?

Let me share how schools before 2028 BS used to educate children in villages. Even the government did not know the number of schools across Nepal but these schools had their own curriculum to meet individual as well as social needs. The majority of schools particularly primary ones were never connected with the national examination system but they were efficient to educate millions of children. It does not mean to revive the system but we can explore such efficient local schooling ideas to make schools resilient and self-efficient. That was the time when there were few literate members of the community, but now we have educated or at least literate family members who can be teachers of their children. We have municipalities to follow micro strategies to engage teachers and students from their home. Probably flexible curriculum may provide schools with opportunities for developing own learning programmes, learning materials and outcomes. Of course, national education policy can provide them guidelines to maintain the education standard. Municipalities can be a focal point to manage local resources like teacher trainers, experts, teachers, learning materials and other essential materials. The wise use of ICT in education may develop our schools and education for the growing generation. FM radios and local televisions can be utilised to reach out children and their parents can be engaged with them. In cities and towns, internet facilities can be more productive. There may be challenges for ICT illiterate teachers to gather digital content and materials for teaching and learning but they can be shortly trained through radio or television to use smart mobile or personal computer to explore online materials.

4. What are the differences between online teaching-learning materials and face-to-face teaching-learning materials? As the academic session is going to kick off soon, how can we use the existing materials and resources for teaching via online, radio, TV or so on?

Teachers can bring some laboratory works and concrete materials in the traditional physical classroom but digital learning materials can be animated or real videos, audios and audio-visual. For many learners, online materials can be more productive than what they can read in library books. Unfortunately, such online materials cannot be shared without the internet. As I said earlier, the Education Unit at municipalities can look for ICT experts across the country to train local teachers on how to use digital devices and digital materials in teaching and learning. At least local authorities can train few teachers to plan and deliver lessons on TV lively and even students can be allowed to talk to the teacher over phone. It can go live on the radio too. By listening to the radio, students can work with pen and paper. In cities and towns, teachers and students can be shortly trained to use free apps like Skype, Messenger and Viber, and to communicate through emails. Teachers can utilise these free apps and emails to share learning materials and go to live interaction. Teachers need to have minimum ICT skills to operate these technologies. Unfortunately for many teachers, these advanced technologies may be intimidating. In that case, local teachers can be allowed to choose local learning materials for students. It can develop local autonomy and students’ independent skills. Both students and teachers can use print materials as a source of content. School and local libraries can be developed as a learning hub.

5. You have been facilitating the graduates at Open University, Nepal. What particular strategies do you employ for an online-based classroom to make the students engaged and make teaching-learning activities effective?

We have basic ICT infrastructure to plan and deliver lessons. We basically use MOODLE to share digital content with students, give feedback on students’ regular works and assess their works. Microsoft Teams connects students and teachers and they have a regular video conference on it. It is a dynamic tool to share screen and present works. I can create teams of any number and schedule meeting for the team. This application is highly advanced for online teaching and learning which allows us to share heavy contents like movies or large size videos and digital books. The whole class can be recorded and students can download it whenever they want to. Students from their home or comfortable place can join the class and share ideas. Actually, everyone works on their devices while they are in an online class with their teacher and friends. I teach a research course and it requires students to work on their area of research. I provide live feedback on their works and they actually work with my feedback. It is really effective, interactive and productive as we work while we discuss. I don’t go for a lecture.

6. As the pandemic hit us, we do not seem ‘prepared’ to deliver teaching-learning using alternative means. Firstly, the majority of teachers themselves do not seem to be well-equipped to employ alternative means. So, what skills should the teachers acquire to run alternative teaching-learning and how can we develop their capacity?

Yes, we may be immature to think about moving all schools online in this situation. As I explained earlier, the majority of schools don’t have ICT infrastructure and teachers may not have minimum ICT skills. We cannot expect students to have expensive internet and computers, particularly in rural remote villages. I have reported several challenges including a lack of ICT infrastructure, teachers’ ICT literacy and government preparedness in my research publications (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/KarnaRana). I wish the government would have enacted its educational policy in ICT and plan itself without relying on I/NGOs for the past two decades. If the government has a proper plan to equip teachers with ICT, the local governments can be involved in the project. In a cluster of many teachers at the local level, they can be trained to operate a computer and use internet facilities. Teachers basically need minimum computer skills, ICT literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, media literacy and communication literacy. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to train all the teachers across the country now. The educational crisis is apparently caused by unpredicted pandemic COVID-19 and such crisis may turn up time and again. Can we think a new way of schooling much more resilient than just internet-based school?

7. People also have started speculating that the online means can replace the face-to-face mode of teaching-learning in future. To what extent is there gravity in this speculation in terms of Nepal? And to what extent do we need online means?

I don’t think so. Internet can be used as a means but not as a replacement. There are predictable challenges like network crash, piracy and cyber-attack. Internet is based on the ideology of a few developed countries and they can hold the power of it. Let’s not imagine the worst but who knows if they destroy all the mechanisms of the majority of the countries. From my knowledge in this area, I would never suggest totally going to online. Of course, we can utilise internet facilities and develop the mechanism of e-learning to complement social learning strategies. Thinking about absolutely online school in Nepal may be an immature idea. The landscape of the country, weak national economic condition and expensive technology will be great barriers ahead. Poor people cannot afford such an expensive education. There are practical issues like how we can conduct actual laboratory works, how children learn to socialise and what kind of world we expect to be. I would rather think about how to develop the best practice that suits our local context.

Note: Now the floor is open for you. We encourage you to drop your comments in the box below after reading the interview. Your constructive feedback and questions inspire the interviewee. Thank you!

[To cite it: Rana, K. (2020, April 20). E-learning is only a means but not a replacement of physical classroom [blog post]. Retrieved from: https://eltchoutari.com/2020/04/e-learning-is-only-a-means-but-not-a-replacement-of-physical-classroom-dr-rana/]

Place of English in the integrated curriculum for early grades (1-3) in Nepal

Language planning and policy, Reflections,
Ramesh Prasad Ghimire

Scene setting

 Schools, around the world, are gradually moving towards an integrated curriculum from a traditional subject-centered curriculum. Advocates of an integrated curriculum argue that it promotes holistic and meaningful learning that is linked to real life. In Nepal, an integrated curriculum for basic grades (1-3) has been developed and being piloted in grade 1 in selected schools in this academic session. Though the idea of an integrated curriculum is not new, its systematic practice in Nepal is new and therefore the stakeholders of education need to be clear about its concept. Integrated curriculum is a relative concept and curriculum integration is always a matter of degree. This article tries to provide a brief picture of an integrated curriculum for basic grades (1-3) in Nepal focusing mainly on the English subject area. It begins with brief background information about integrated curriculum. Next, it provides its theoretical concepts. After that there is a short synopsis of an English subject of an integrated curriculum. The article ends by providing a glimpse of the materials that have been developed based on integrated curriculum.

Key words: Integrated, multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, themes, soft skills

 Background

In Nepal an integrated curriculum for basic grades (1-3) has been developed and the curriculum of grade 1 is under piloting in 103 public schools in this academic year. The curriculum for grade 1 will be fully implemented in all the school of Nepal in the academic year 2077 (2020 AD) after the revision based on the feedback obtained from piloting. The integrated curriculum was developed as a refinement of traditional subject-centered curriculum. It is expected that the integrated curriculum counters the limitations of the subject-centered curriculum and makes learning holistic and meaningful. National Curriculum Framework (NCF, 2075) has made a provision for an integrated curriculum for basic grades (1-3). The NCF has made a provision for six major learning areas for grade 1-3 as shown in the table below:

Curriculum structure of basic education (grade 1-3)

S. N. Subject-related activities Credit hour Annual working hour
1 Activities related to literacy skills  (Nepali) 5 160
2 Activities related to literacy skills  (English) 4 128
3 Activities related to numeracy skills 4 128
4 Activities related to science, health and physical education 4 128
5 Activities related to social studies, character development and creative arts 4 128
6 Activities related to mother tongue/local contents 5 160
Total 26 832

Source: Basic level (grade 1-3) curriculum, 2075, p. 5

 Concept of an integrated curriculum

In a general sense, integrated curriculum is defined as a curriculum that interlinks learning of more than one domain or learning area. It can also be defined as a curriculum that promotes holistic learning by helping the children to make connections. This type of curriculum makes learning relevant to learner’s life and develops problem solving skills in the students by providing them “minds-on” and “hands-on” learning processes. Humphreys (1981 as cited in Lake 1994, pp. 1-2 ) states, “An integrated study is one in which children broadly explore knowledge in various subjects related to certain aspects of their environment”. The term interdisciplinary is often used to refer to an integrated curriculum.  Jacobs (1989 as cited in Lake 1994 pp. 1-2) defines interdisciplinary as “a knowledge view and curricular approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or experience”. These definitions support the view that integrated curriculum is an educational approach that prepares children for lifelong learning.

The rational for an integrated curriculum

It is commonly accepted that we need integrated curriculum:

  • To promote collaborative learning.
  • To reflect the real world in the learning process.
  • To connect school with society.
  • To motivate the learners for learning.
  • To check in the fragmentation of learning and to make learning more integrated and holistic.
  • To give learners an opportunity to learn in their own place.
  • To make learning relevant for life by integrating soft skills in the learning process.

 Approaches to curriculum integration

There are various approaches to curriculum integration. Susan Drake (2018) discusses the three framework for planning the integrated curriculum.

Multidisciplinary: In this model, the same topic or theme is addressed by each of the separate disciplines. It retains the integrity of each discipline. Multidisciplinary approaches focus primarily on the disciplines. Teachers who use this approach organize standards from the disciplines around a theme. The standards of the disciplines organised around a theme is the organising center in this model.

Interdisciplinary: In this model, specific skills, processes or ideas which are common to all disciplines are identified and they are addressed through the disciplines. Learning to learn is the organising factor in this model. In this model, teachers organize the curriculum around common learning across disciplines. They chunk together the common learning embedded in the disciplines to emphasize interdisciplinary skills and concepts.

 Trans-disciplinary: In this model, the focus of curriculum planning is ‘life-centered approach’. Knowledge is examined as it exists in the real world. The content to be learned is determined by the theme and the expressed interests and need of the students, rather than predetermined by some curriculum framework or set of curriculum objectives. In this model, teachers organize curriculum around student questions and concerns. Real-life context and student questions are the organising center of this model.

Continuum of curriculum integration

Integrated curriculum is not an absolute concept rather it is a relative concept and a matter of degree. Scholars have proposed various designs of integrated curriculum ranging from loosely integrated to highly integrated. The following figure represents the continuum of integrated curriculum.

As shown in the figure above, disciplinary curriculum is loosely integrated in nature. The existing school curriculum of Nepal is an example of it. At the opposite end of the continuum, there is a trans-disciplinary curriculum which is deeply integrated in nature. This sort of curriculum is rarely practised in the world. Only a few European schools have practised this sort of curriculum. In this type of curriculum, there exist no subjects. Students are involved in projects and problem-solving tasks.

 

Designed curriculum as integrated curriculum in Nepal

The present integrated curriculum for basic grades (1-3) in Nepal is based on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary design. It is important to note here that there were six different subjects in the Primary Education Curriculum 2063 as mentioned below:

  • Nepali
  • English
  • Maths
  • Social studies and creative arts
  • Science, health and physical education and
  • Local subject/mother tongue

 

In the new integrated curriculum (2075) there are only three learning domains: language, maths and our surroundings. The language domain includes three languages Nepali, English and mother tongue. Maths remains as a separate discipline. The learning domain ‘our surroundings’ consists of the following subjects of the old curriculum:

  • Social studies and creative arts,
  • Science, health and physical education

Thus, the current interdisciplinary design of the integrated curriculum can be shown below in the figure.

It is clear from the above figure that the learning domain ‘Our surroundings’ incorporates three subjects, i.e. ‘Social studies and creative arts, Science and environment and Health.

As already mentioned the present integrated curriculum for basic grades consists of three main disciplines language, maths and our surroundings. It means that these three learning areas remain as separate disciplines and thus form a multidisciplinary design. This can be presented in the following figure.

The overall design of the Grade 1-3 curriculum

The overall design of the grade 1-3 curriculum can be best presented with the help of the following figure.

It is clear from the above figure that the present integrated curriculum for grades 1-3 consists of three disciplines maths, language, and our surroundings. These learning areas have been linked by the common themes and various soft skills have been incorporated across the disciplines.

Themes as the linking forces in the integrated curriculum

It should be noted that the present integrated curriculum for grades 1-3 is a theme-based curriculum developed following multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary design. Various themes such as Me and My Family, My School, Our Culture, Birds and Animals and Fruits and Vegetables have been proposed in order to establish a link among the disciplines. There are two types of themes in the curriculum: common themes and subject-specific themes. Some themes are common to all the four subject areas, i.e. Nepali, English, Maths and Our Surroundings, and rest of others are specific to the subject.

Soft skills that have been integrated into the curriculum

The integration of various soft skills is one of the key features of the present integrated curriculum. The major soft skills that have been integrated across the subject areas have been mentioned below.

  • Thinking skills
  • Intrapersonal skills
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Information Communication and Multi-literacy skills

Key features of the English domain of an integrated curriculum

The English subject area of the integrated curriculum is based on the Communicative Approach to Language Teaching (CLT) as a theory of language teaching and learning. So far as curriculum design is concerned, it is based on a multi-strand model because it incorporates various models and approaches to curriculum development. It consists of language skills, language functions and also themes. Thus, its aim is to develop comprehensive communicative competence in the learners. There are six level-wise competencies and various learning outcomes in the curriculum. One new learning area has been added to conventional four language skills, i.e. viewing and presenting. It is integrated in nature. It is competency-based and various soft-skills have been integrated in it. There are altogether 11 themes: Six multidisciplinary (common) themes and five subject-specific themes. Themes are the tools to integrate learning. It demands team planning and teaching to integrate learning across disciplines.

Materials developed apart from the curriculum

In addition to the curriculum, two types of learning materials have been developed: curriculum implementation guideline and student’s workbook.

Curriculum implementation guideline: The curriculum implementation guide-line is designed to assist the teachers in planning their units and lessons. It is basically a pedagogical guideline for the teachers. Curriculum basically articulates why to teach and what to teach. It says a broader pedagogical approach in a general sense but cannot provide a detail pedagogical support to the teacher. In order to address this aspect, a curriculum implementation guideline has been developed. It consists of a wide variety of suggested activities for the teachers.

Students’ workbook: Student’s workbook is the key learning material developed for the students. It is different from the traditional textbook. Traditional textbook basically focused on the contents and it did not consist of sufficient activities for students to practice language skills. On the contrary, the present workbook consists of several activities for the students. It is, in fact, a blended form of textbook and workbook because it includes both content and activities for self and guided practice for the students.

Conclusion

The initial feedback obtained from the teachers and the students shows that an integrated curriculum is effective in encouraging learners for active and engaged learning. It encourages collaboration and communication among both the teachers and the students. Since it demands team planning and grade teaching, there is an increased level of teacher preparation before teaching. When we implement the curriculum throughout the country teacher preparation becomes an important and challenging task. In any curricular innovation teacher resistance is a possible risk, and there is no guarantee that we do not face this risk in this case. Until and unless the teacher, a real hero in the classroom, is clear, convinced and enthusiastic to implement a new curriculum and curricular materials, no matter how effective the curriculum is, it does not work. Therefore, careful and effective teacher preparation is necessary before we launch it in a large scale. In the same way, the curriculum and materials based on its need to be timely revised and made available incorporating the feedbacks obtained from its piloting.

References

Curriculum Development Center (2006). Primary education curriculum (grade 1-3). Sanothimi Bhaktapur; Curriculum Development Center.

Curriculum Development Center (2008). Primary education curriculum (grade 4-5). Sanothimi Bhaktapur; Curriculum Development Center.

Curriculum Development Center (2019). Basic level (grade 1-3) curriculum. Sanothimi, Bhaktapur; Curriculum Development Center.

Curriculum Development Center (2019). Curriculum implementation guideline, English. Sanothimi, Bhaktapur. Curriculum Development Center.

Drake, S.M. & Reid L. J. (2018). Integrated Curriculum as an Effective Way to Teach 21st Century Capabilities. Asia Pacific Journal of Educational Research. Vol. 1(1) 31-50.

Lake, K. (1994). Integrated Curriculum. Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education.

The author

Ramesh Prasad Ghimire is currently an Officer at Education Training Center, Dhulikhel. He was the coordinator of an English subject area of an integrated curriculum while he was working in the Curriculum Development Center. His areas of interest include English language teaching (ELT) material development, teacher training and instructional leadership.

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[SURVEY] Reading Habit: Do Our Students Read the Books Outside the Textbooks?

Education in General, Miscellaneous, , , ,
Translation: Praveen Kumar Yadav

Loads of textbook while going to school!

Loads of homework while returning home from the school!

Teachers and schools do not show their interests in curriculum and materials neither do students and guardians. In this context, private education has witnessed clear signs of a gradual shift from the rote learning. A survey, published in Nepal Magazine, found that 57 percent of school-age children has inclined to read the books other than the textbooks. The survey on the students’ habit of reading the non-prescribed textbooks has highlighted the fact. 

The survey, that was conducted eight months ago, showed that the students have been trying to get out of the textbooks. Even today, many teachers are still unable to complete the courses and textbooks within the academic session. Nevertheless, 84 percent of the teachers have encouraged their students to read non-textbooks, as per the findings of the survey. While 16 percent of teachers have also forced the students to remain focused on the textbook, citing the time constraints.

Forty-three percent of the total participants have not been able to study the materials other than the textbooks. Although the role and significance of the non-textbooks is similar to the textbook, there is an absence of realistic study on the interests of stakeholders on the reading of non-textbooks. “It is beneficial to give children an important book instead of 300 chocolates. We found that the parents sending their children to private schools have understood this fact to some extent while the parents of government-owned community schools are yet to make aware of this fact”, says Manish Jha, manager of Research and Analytics, which conducted this survey.

During the survey, the students were asked:

  • Are you encouraged to read the non-textbooks and materials?


In response, 83 percent of the students said that they were encouraged to read the materials outside the coursebook, while 17 percent responded that no one encouraged them to read the materials beyond the textbook. 84 percent of school teachers said that they have recommended their students to reading textbooks /materials outside the coursebook. The rest  (16 percent) of the school teachers, responded that they advised their students to remain focused on the textbooks, showing the time constraints to complete course in time. 

The measurement of academic achievement shows that there is a huge gap between government and private schools. For example, average learning achievement of government school children is 40 percent while the achievement of students in private schools is more than 70 percent. For such a huge difference in academic achievement, teaching and learning factor has a major role to play. The survey shows that the children of private schools who have secured more than 70 percent of the learning achievement are also active in studying materials outside the coursebook, while the students of government schools with 40 percent leaning achievement can hardly complete studying the coursebook alone.

Of course, teachers feel pressured for timely publication of results due to the constraints such as timely completion of the textbooks and examination-oriented teaching. The students have not been able to get rid of rote-learning and burden of homework. However, recent preference of the majority of teachers and students to non-textbook materials is a pleasant aspect, Amod Bhattarai, a member of the research team says. “Most of the teachers, students and guardians have been promoting the reading culture of the non-textbooks, and the trend is on rising in the country.”

These days, there are fewer parents who do not want to invest in their children’s education. Such an investment depends on the income of the parents. A well-to-do parent invests more than those who earn less. This survey shows that parents, who understand the importance of education and whose financial status is better, are investing more in the education of their children.

In the survey, 63 percent of the 663 parents and guardians, who participated in the survey, said that they have purchased non-textbooks for their children. Among them, 42 percent of the parents have purchased the non-textbooks worth 1000 to 3000 rupees annually for their children. There are 16 percent guardians who invest 3000 to 5000 thousand rupees annually to buy non-textbooks and materials for their children while four percent of those guardians have been investing more than 5000 rupees and two percent have been investing more than 7000 rupees.

The survey revealed that the non-textbooks selected for children have been written in a variety of languages. For instance, 47 percent of guardians purchases non-textbooks written in Nepali and English while 28 percent of guardians buy those written in English and 23 percent buys non-textbooks of Nepali language. Only two percent guardians invest in purchasing the materials written in other languages. 

The survey has shown diversity in children’s choice for the book. ‘Storybooks’ is the first choice of children. 55 percent of students participating in the survey have purchased the story books. Thereafter, children chose other books based on the theme of the children. According to the study, 28 percent of the students purchase children’s books and 28 percent have purchased the books with biography. Likewise, 26 percent of the children have shown interest in essays, 24 percent in facts and figures, 20 percent in paintings, 18 percent in the books with illustrations, 12 percent in travelogue, nine percent in comics and four percent in the memoir. Hem Krishna Shrestha, who is involved in the survey, says, “Stories have touched children’s mind. So, the choice of the majority is for stories.”

Needless to mention that the concept of technology-based education such as smart learning, e-learning, e-library, e-book, etc, is not new. However, students are still interested in purchasing the books for reading purpose. 74% of the respondents said that they feel pleasure in reading the printed books. Only few have read books borrowed from school libraries and their friends. This means that our school system still enjoys traditional form of teaching-learning activities.

School time for students is usually spent for regular teaching-learning activities, assignments, classwork and project work. The children who are tired of school assignments are from private schools. In the regular school schedule, children cannot read non-textbooks. So, children have utilised a long vacation to read non-textbooks. According to the survey, students and guardians buy books at the book exhibitions or when they are available at discounted price, and also based o the recommendation of friends, book reviews, and writers’ names.

Not all guardians invest in non-textbooks. The number of guardians involved in the survey who do not want to purchase non-textbooks is 33 percent. Kashyap Marhatha, a member of the survey team, says, “Dire economic situation and lack of education and consciousness, etc. is its main reason. Hence, some have invested nothing in the purchase of non-textbook.” dire

For such a less investment of parents and interest of students in non-textbook, existing government school environment is responsible. The reason is, government schools are still unable to come out of the government curriculum and prescribed textbooks. Textbooks are neither delivered timely nor are they completely covered in the government schools. It is not strange to find that there is no discussion of non-textbooks in the government schools which solely rely on textbooks. Education expert Bidyanath Koirala says, “A school teacher of Baglung has kept the keys of the library, tied with his janai (sacred thread).  Since no one visits the library, it is never open.”

The government has not carried out the study about the overall reading habits of school children. Public discussion is very little on how much students are interested in non-textbooks, the level of their engagement in reading and how their learning achievements are affected by this.This survey has highlighted the fact that the students who study materials outside the textbook have improved significantly in learning achievement and broadened their mind. Koirala says, “There is a wide difference in the scope of knowledge of those students who have studied coursebook only and those who have also studied non-textbooks and external books. That is why, it is necessary to motivate every student to read books outside the coursebook.”

Status of government schools on teaching non-textbook materials

The country’s education consists of 85% government schools and 15% private schools. In terms of non-textbook reading habit, the situation of private school is positive but the status of government school is disappointing. The government standards set by the Education Ministry that the schools should be opened for 220 days annually and then 180 days for teaching learning activities have not been implemented effectively. Most of government schools are hardly able to complete the coursebook and the national curriculum developed by the Curriculum Development Center (CDC). Therefore, children, teachers and guardians of government schools have not been able to concentrate on reading non-textbooks.

Gyanodaya Higher Secondary School, located in Bafal of Kathmandu, is one of good schools in the country. However, in the same school, former Principal Dhananjay Sharma admits that the school was unable to motivate the student to read non-textbooks. “A decision was made for a teacher to read at least a book per month was not executed. After the teachers did not read the books, the students did not read them either.”

With a view to develop the reading culture among teachers and students, Gyanodaya School has scheduled ‘library period’. Yet,  the reading culture is to develop. Reading the non-textbooks in the government schools has been neglected because the textbooks have not been taught properly, the teachers do not accept the non-textbooks as source of knowledge, and poor parents cannot afford the non-textbooks for their children.

Let’s explore another case to understand the status of the government school on teaching non-textbooks. Pragati Siksha Sadan situated in Kupandol of Lalitpur is another standard school. The school could not motivate children to read the books other than textbooks, principal Surya Ghimire shares. “Our teaching learning activities are limited to the textbooks due to pressure on the completion of the courses and securing high scores. The habit of reading non-textbooks is yet to be cultivated in teachers, guardians and students.”

Pragati Siksha Sadan has adopted a unique way to increase the children’s reading culture. As per the unique method, namely ‘Drop Everything And Read (DEAR)’, when an emergency bell rings in the school at any time, teachers and students start reading soon , halting the activities they are involved in This is called ‘DEAR’. However, the DEAR has not even been able to do so. Ghimire says, “This has increased the reading of textbooks, but it has not been able to contribute to reading non-textbook materials.”

Survey Methodology and Population

The urban centred survey was conducted in the schools located in 12 cities of 12 districts in Nepal. They were Birtamode of Jhapa, Biratnagar of Morang, Janakpur of Dhanusha, Bharatpur of Chitwan, Birgunj of Parsa, Lalitpur, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Butwal of Rupandehi, Pokhara of Kaski, Nepalgunj of Banke and Dhangadhi of Kailali. The survey was conducted among 2599 respondents, who were teachers, students and guardian of both government and private schools. Among the respondents were 622 students from 6-16 years age group studying up to tenth grade, 635 non-guardians, 677 guardians and 625 teachers. Each of these four groups were asked 16 questions. The answers to those questions were processed to bring the findings.

Acknowledgement 

This post is the English translation of the article originally published in Nepali based on survey carried out by Facts – Research and Analytics.

Language Planning in Nepal: A Bird’s Eye View

Language planning and policy, , ,
Kumar Narayan Shrestha
Kumar Narayan Shrestha

Introduction

Nepal is a multiethnic, multilingual, multi-religious and multicultural country. According to the latest census (2011), there are 123 languages and 125 castes and ethnic groups. However, Lewis (2009) and Yonjan-Tamang (2005) claim that there are 126 and 144 languages spoken within the territory of Nepal (as cited in Rai, Rai, Phyak & Rai, 2011). Although, languages are sources of knowledge and icon of identity, the majority of indigenous languages spoken in Nepal are endangered due to various reasons.

There were recorded ten different religions viz.  Hindu, Bouddha, Islam, Kirat, Christian, Prakriti, Bon, Jain, Bahai and Sikha. Similarly, there are four llanguage families/genetic: Tibeto-burman, Indio-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic/Munda, Dravidian (Kansakar, 1996, p.1). But Rai (2016) says there five families (Kusunda no family ye), fourteen scripts.

According to (CBC, 2011), the major five mother tongue speakers are as follow:

 

1. Nepali 44.6%
2. Maithali 11.7%
3. Bhojpuri 6%
4. Tharu 5.8%
5. Tamang 5.1%
6. Newar 3.2%

 

According to Yadav (2007) many indigenous languages of Nepal have spoken form only. Rai (2016) says there are 14 scripts: 1. Nepali 2. Lepcha 3. Kirati 4. Tamang 5. Sherpa 6. Newari 7. Santhal 8. Gurung 9. Maithali 10. Bhojpuri 11. Magar 12. Sunuwar (Koich) 13. Dhimal 14. Muslim (Urdu)

According to Yadav (2007,10) Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Maithli, Newari, Sherpa, Tamang, Tharua and Urdu have all kinds of publications, whereas Bajjika, Chepang, Danuwar, Jero, Kumal, Lohorung, Nawa, Nuhbri Ke (Larke), Santhali (Satar), Surel, Tokpegola/Dhokpya and Uranw/Kudux have no publications and other languages have some publications available.

Language Planning and Methodology

Language planning is inevitable for any government since it is associated with the notion of national language. Language as an identity can be a source of national unification as well as source of dispute in a country. Therefore, in the multilingual situation like in Nepal, proper initiative needs to be adopted to build a unified nation.

For the first time, the term ‘language planning’ was coined by Einar Haugen in the 1950s to elucidate the process of language development. It is “a government-authorized, long-term, sustained and conscious effort to alter a language’s function in a society for the purpose of solving communication problems” (Weinstein, 1980, p. 56.). Conclusively, following Cooper (1989) it can be understood as deliberate efforts to influence the behaviour of others with respect to the acquisition, structure, or functional allocation of their language codes” (p. 183). Mostly, language planning is carried out by authorized agencies but to restrict it to the work of authoritative institutions is to be too restrictive (Cooper, 1989).

Different scholars suggest different stages of language planning. Such as, Haugen (1966) proposes four aspects of language development: selection of form, codification of form, elaboration of function and acceptance by the community. On the other hand, Cooper (1989) suggests three stages of language planning: corpus planning, status planning, and acquisition planning.  The stages mentioned by Cooper (1989) can be described as follows:

Corpus planning

Corpus planning deals with the reform within the language structure. Most commonly, a language or one variety of a language is picked up by the government to standardize it. Cooper (1989) states it as the “the creation of new forms, the modification of old ones, or the selection from alternative forms in a spoken or written code” (p. 31). It focuses on the internal condition of a language or language variety. It aims to standardize a variety of language and change its condition. It generally includes the development of orthography, new sources of vocabulary, dictionaries, and literature, and the deliberate cultivation of new uses so that the use of language can be extended to government, education, trade and link language and so on. It may include creation of new forms in spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. As Corpus Planning of Nepali language, British Scholars such as J.A. Ayton (1820) and Sir Ralph Turner (1931) began the standardization process by producing grammar and dictionaries of Nepali. (Kansakar 1996, p.3)

Status planning

Status planning changes the status of a language either by raising or degrading the status of a language. It may deprive or allow the speakers of a minority language to use it in government, education, and trade. It deals with efforts undertaken to change the use and function of a language. It is the allocation of new function to the language in question. Conclusively, for Cooper (1989) it refers to ‘changes in the systems of … speaking’, ‘changes in a language’s functions, ‘language use’, ‘use of language’ and ‘organization of a community’s language resources’. It is concerned with the relationship between language rather than changes within them.

Acquisition planning

It aims to expand the number of speakers of the language in question. Following Cooper (1989) “When planning is directed towards increasing a language’s uses, it falls within the rubric of status planning” (p. 33). It focuses on the teaching and the use of language. Cooper (1989) mentions three types of acquisition goals:

  1. Acquisition of the language as the second or foreign language;
  2. Renativization or revitalization of the language;
  3. Language maintenance.

In case of acquisition planning, the learners are provided with opportunities and incentives to attract their attention. Acquisition planning becomes effective when the language in question serves all the functions desired by the speakers or learners.

Phases of Language Planning in Nepal

Weinberg (2013, p.63) has mentioned three phases of language planning in Nepal.

Periods before 1950 (As rare as snakes in Ireland)

This phase is considered to begin around the annexation of Nepal by Prithivi Narayan Shah and existed till 1950. It stretched within two absolute reigns of Nepal, absolute Shah before Ranarchy and Ranarchy itself. The use of then Khasa language has become Nepali language now which was supposed to germinate politically during Shah Regime in Gorkha. This very language was nurtured by Ranas later. However, “The Rana rulers were not interested in developing the feelings of nationalism that often inspire the imposition of national language policies” (Burghart, 1984 in Weinberg 2013, p.63). They were also opposed to widespread education therefore there was no need to set language in education policies.

First language policy in Nepal was made in 1905. Then, Nepali language was made as language of law and government. However, Hutt (1988 in Weinberg 2013, p.63) claims that no documentation of this declaration has been published.

On the other hand, though Nepali was only permissible court language, Rana (Janga Bahadur) wanted English-language education for his children. He established Durbar School for Rana family. It was the first government-run English medium school in Nepal. However, Hindu Pathshalas and Baudha Gompas were using Sanskrit and Tibetan respectively as medium of instruction from the time immemorial in Nepal.

Later, Dev Shamsher opened 200 Nepali language schools. Likewise, in 1905 Chandra Shamsher started a Nepali-medium school to train civil servants. In 1934, Nepali was declared as the official language of education (Caddell, 2007 in Weinberg, 2013, p. 69).

Padam Shamsher’s regime is marked as a turning point in the history of language policy of Nepal. He proposed ‘vernacular’ schools inspired by Gandhi.

The first post-secondary educational institution in Nepal was Trichandra College, established in 1918. In this college, language of education was English. Its purpose was to shelter students of Durbar school and to prevent them from going abroad (India). His underling purpose was to prevent Nepalese from getting radical ideas which could be dangerous for them.

From 1950-1990 (Panchayat Era: one language one nation)

After 1950 for the first time, Nepal’s government became interested in cultural unification. According to Rai et al. (2011) Panchayat government imposed their political goals through the slogan of ek bhasha, ek bhesh, ek dharma, ek desh (one language, one way of dress, one religion, one nation), which attempted to spread Nepali, Hinduism, and other symbols of nation throughout the country to create a unified national identity. Its goal was to assimilate people of different culture and linguistic background into a Nepali identity based on the cultural practices of elite, high-caste hill Hindus (Onta, 1996a, as cited in Weinberg 2013)

Education was taken as a tool for teaching the end. After the introduction of democracy, new educational language policy was formed considering the recommendation of Nepal National Educational Planning Commission (NNEPC). The report of the NNEPC strongly supported Nepali as the medium of instruction for schooling, largely for purposes of national integration. The report advocated the use of Nepali language not only in classroom but also on playgrounds and in all spheres of life. It states:

The study of a non-Nepali local tongue would mitigate against the effec­tive development of Nepali, for the student would make greater use of it than Nepali – at home and in the community – and thus Nepali would re­main a “foreign” language. If the younger generation is taught to use Ne­pali as the basic language, then other languages will gradually disappear, and greater national strength and unity will result. (NNEPC, 1956, p. 97).

NNEP followed Hugh B. Wood’s personal view and practice of his country (English as medium). Another educational policy was proposed by National Education System Plan (NESP,1971). It advocated the use of only Nepali in administration, education and media. Stressing the need of monolingual situation, it states the goal of education as”

“to strength devotion to crown, country, national unity and the Panchayat system, to develop uniform traditions in education by bringing together various patterns under a single national policy, to limit the tradition of regional languages…” (Ministry of Education, 1971, p.1)

Throughout Panchayat era Nepali language speakers got privilege as the goal of education was to unify nation under one language and one culture.

Schooling After 1990: The Right to Education in the Mother Tongue

After the restoration  of democracy in 1990, for the first time new constitution recognized Nepal as a multicultural and multilingual country. The Constitution of 1990 states “All the languages spoken as the mother tongue in the various parts of Nepal are the national languages of Nepal. (His Majesty’s Government of Nepal, 1990). For the first time language in education policy was stated in the constitution. It paved a way for running school in mother-tongue and even teaching at least up to primary in mother tongue.

In 1993 a commission for formulating policy for national languages was formed to promote national languages and their use in local administration, primary education and media.

Rai (2016) claims that as a result of ‘Education for all (2015) campaign’, textbooks are published in twenty two indigenous languages. Quite recently, the constitution of Nepal (2015) has provisioned the right of language under fundamental rights and states, “Every Nepalese community residing in Nepal shall have the right to get education in its mother tongue and, for that purpose, to open and operate schools and educational institutes, in accordance with law. (The Constitution of Nepal, 2015, Part 3, Article 31)

The School Sector Reform Plan, 2009-2015 provided supported use of mother tongues in grade one through three (Ministry of Education, 2009). The government has approved a set of guidelines for implementing multilingual education and commissioned a report on teaching Nepali as a second language to speakers of other languages in Nepal (Yonjan-Tamang, 2012 in Weinberg, 2013, p.67).

Conclusion

Language planning tries to develop the uses of the country’s national language for the purposes of education, trade, technology and so on. Language planning is ideally based on language policy. Language planning mainly embraces corpus planning, status planning and acquisition planning. In the history of language planning in Nepal has gone through many ups and downs, from monolingualism to mother-tongue rights which still lack feasibility and ground based reality in planning and implementation. Since it is the era of local identity, the government has accepted its spirit through linguistic inclusion.

 

Kumar Narayan Shrestha, M.Ed. and M.A., is a faculty at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He is an M.Phil. scholar at Kathmandu University. He has been associated in teaching for seventeen years. He has published articles in different journals and presented papers in national/international conferences. His professional interests include ELT, research and translation.

References

Central Bureau of Statistics. (2014). Statistical pocket book of Nepal. Kathmandu: Author.

Nepal Gazette (2015). The Constitution of Nepal (2015). Kathmandu: Author.

His Majesty’s Government, Nepal. (1990). Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 2047 (1990). Kathmandu: His Majesty’s Government.

Kansakar, T.R. (1996). Language planning and modernization in Nepal. Nepalese Linguistics, 13 .1-13.

Ministry of Education. (1971). The national education system plan for 1971-76. Kathmandu: His Majesty’s Government.

Nepal National Education Planning Commission. (1956). Education in Nepal: Report of the Nepal education planning commission. Kathmandu: His Majesty’s Government.

Rai, G. (2016, August 26). Ojnelma chaltika anya lipi [Other prevalent scripts in shadow]. Kantipur, p. 11.

Rai, V.S., Rai, M., Phyak, P. Rai, N. (2011). Multilingual education in Nepal: Hearsay and reality? A report. Paper commissioned for UNESCO. Kathmandu: UNESCO.

Weinberg, M. (2013). Revisiting history in language policy: The case of medium of instruction in Nepal. Working Paper in Educational Linguistics, 28 (1), 61-80.

Weinstein, B. (1980). Language planning in francophone Africa. LPLP, 4 (1), 55-77.

Yadava, Y.P. (2007). Linguistic diversity in Nepal perspectives on language policy. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 237459920

So What, If Not Mother Tongue?

Critical Thinking, Language planning and policy, , , , , , ,
Karna Rana
Karna Rana

“Probably I’m the only person here who speaks one language. I wish I could speak more languages.” – An English native.

Why language matters in our daily life becomes a hot chilli at teatime, at lunch break, on a journey and at other round tables. One day on a fifteen-minute teatime break, one of my workplace colleagues who speaks only English said, “Probably I’m the only person here who speaks one language. I wish I could speak more languages.” His statement caused laughter among the four of us who used to sit at the table, and they were from different countries. All of us except he could speak at least two languages. There were other colleagues from China, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Korea, Samoa, Fiji, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Jordan, and some other countries. I was among them from Nepal. He was the only English native in the group of about fifty-five people excluding the supervisor. Those who were from different countries could speak their mother tongue as well as English. Most of them had colleagues from their own countries and majority of them were females. The environment obviously allowed them to speak in their own  languages. There were four of us (only males) not having colleagues from our countries. The English native who used to sit beside me could only understand English. When others were talking in their own languages, he used to look at their face and smile, which was unusual for English native living in the English country.

It is an example to understand the scope of multiple languages. The place of language as a situation has a connection with several social and cultural aspects. Whether the right to language matters or not, the place where someone is, has a value of speech. The smile of the English native would not often deliver his thoughts when other language speakers used to communicate in their own languages. The situation requires a link language (lingua franca) for verbal communication between the different language speakers. It is still not sure whether the link language can fully transmit their understandings, feelings and meanings. It often happens that two different language speakers using a link language get confused and misunderstand each other. Moreover, the link language may not transmit the feelings of the speakers. When we talk about feelings, it is one of the main characteristics that makes us distinctive, i.e. human being among the creatures in the world. The human feeling is associated with the place where he or she is born and grown up. Thus, beyond than the right to language, there are other human-related important aspects that need to be understood before imposing any other language on the speakers.

“It often happens that two different language speakers using a link language get confused and misunderstand each other. Moreover, the link language may not transmit the feelings of the speakers.”

It may be worthy to write about a seminar on e-Learning and language development that I recently attended in New Zealand. Although the seminar was intended to focus on the research related to digital technology and language development of preschool children, the atmosphere gradually emphasised the socio-cultural aspects of language. A professor from Samoa used Taro (Colocassia in English and Pidaloo in Nepali) farming as a metaphor to develop language in children. His childhood story of planting baby colocassia in a wide land in the right season and harvesting thousands of tonnes of colocassia reflected that the children are the seeds of language which grow in a wide range. When he focused on the right season to plant, it indicated the age of children when they start their social life and acquire language. His words ‘harvest tonnes of colocassia’ represented the growth and development of language. His metaphor was sufficient for us to understand how we can save several indigenous languages in Nepal. In the seminar, the further interaction emphasised that the children’s cognitive development depend on their culture. Another professor remarked that the children conceptualise in their own language other than English in the classroom. She added that the children think in their language and communicate. She suggested that it is necessary to promote the children’s mother tongue from personal, community and national levels. For knowledge, New Zealand has a number of immigrants from different countries who have their languages.

I recently visited Linwood College ( a secondary school with year 13) in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was my second visit to the school to observe the classrooms with a group of Teaching Quality Improvement (TQI) project trainees from Bangladesh. In the interaction with the principal,  head of English Language Learning and other three teachers, Navjot, the head of English  Language Learning, briefly explained about the school environment and classrooms. She stated that the school had students from 21 countries including Nepal. She further explained that the children from different countries and socio-cultural backgrounds speak their languages. However, they have to speak the next language ‘English’ and write in English. She specifically focused on their two different varieties of English, that is, heard language and eye language. She added that the children from different language backgrounds in her school also learned English in their communities or countries. However, they faced difficulties to understand native English at the initial stage. She gave an example that the immigrant children have eye language as they learned English by reading books in their countries. She said that the children learn English from the books, but they think in their mother tongue and try to express in English. It was an example for me to understand why second language learning and speaking becomes so complicated. She also mentioned that her school encourages the immigrant children to use their language. She said, “I encourage them to speak their language and strengthen their language. Use the language as much as they can.”

When I stand on the socio-cultural ground of Nepal, I see a number of indigenous communities, their cultures and different languages. The census of 2011 recorded 125 languages excluding dialects in Nepal. We know that Nepali is the primary language in school education where English is the next language in the community schools. However, the private schools, as well as some community schools, have imposed the English language as a medium of learning and instruction. It is wise not to criticise against the schools’ English language policy without in-depth study in this field in the country. However, it requires the government authority to consider mother tongue as a language of thought and expression, as well as the right to the mother tongue. It is the only way to save the culture, community and the national identity.

Does the above example suggest the education planners in Nepal consider school teaching in those dominated languages in Nepal?

Mr. Rana is a PhD Candidate in School of Teacher Education College of Education, Health and Human Development University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. 

He can be reached at karna.maskirana@pg.canterbury.ac.nz

Language Planning and Policy Should Embrace Inclusive and Co-learning Practices: Dr. Phyak

Critical Thinking, Language planning and policy, , , , , , ,

Teaching English as a language is different from using English as language of instruction

Prem Phyak
Prem Phyak

Prem Phyak (a PhD from the University of Hawaii, USA) is a lecturer, at department of English Education, Tribhuvan University, Nepal. His area of PhD is Second Language Studies, with a focus on multilingual ideologies, policies and pedagogies. His research areas cover identity, agency, and social justice in the intersection of language, space and education.

Our Choutari editor Jeevan Karki has spoken to Dr. Phyak on the area of language planning and policy in the context of Nepal. 

1. Welcome and congratulations Dr. Phyak for your fresh doctoral degree from the University of Hawaii. What are you doing these days?

Thank you, Jeevanji. It took me sometime to settle in Kathmandu. I spend most of my time teaching at both Masters and M.Phil./PhD programs at the Central Department of Education, Tribhuwan University.  Besides, I am working on a project Art, Language and Public Space. I am looking at the enactment of multilingualism in public space of Kathmandu and exploring both the reproduction and resistance of monolingual ideologies through the use of languages in city space.

 2. As we know, one of your areas of interest is language policy in education. For our readers, can you explain what language policy and planning is and why does it become crucial in Nepal, a multilingual country?

Yes, my research draws on interdisciplinary approaches to language education.  There are multiple perspectives of language policy. Traditionally, language policy has been defined as what different bodies of government decide about the use of languages in various agencies like education, mass media and government offices. This perspective is top-down and constructs language policy as a normative (establishing, relating to, or deriving from a standard or norm) practice, which may not necessarily recognize complexity of linguistic diversity and multilingual practices in real life situations.  But my perspective on language policy is bottom-up approach. For me, language policy is what and how individuals, communities, and institutions practise languages in their real life without any censorship and symbolic dominance. From this perspective, each individual is taken as an agent of language policy. Since each individual and community can decide, what language should be used where and for what purposes. It is important to understand on-the-ground language practices. More specifically, language policy is simply a legitimacy of actual language practices on the ground. This perspective goes beyond language-policy-as-text idea to language-policy-as-practice.

“Language policy is simply a legitimacy of actual language practices on the ground.”

In Nepal, language policy discourse is dominantly guided by a top-down and normative ideologies. In other words, government tends to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach in the creation and implementation of language policy. Yet, such a policy does not work in multilingual contexts where languages across their boundaries and practices become fluid and dynamic. Therefore, language policy should be grounded on multilingual ideologies as experienced by bi-/multilingual speakers and epistemologies of language minoritised people.  For me, language policy is ‘plural’ and ‘multiple’ and should recognize language practices of all individuals and communities; it should not impose monolingual ideologies in the guise nation-state and neoliberal ideologies. This perspective on language policy is crucial in a multilingual context like Nepal for two reasons. First, this perspective recognises bi-/multilingual identities of each individual. Second, while taking language policy as a multiple and agentive process, this perspective challenges normative boundaries between language that create hierarchy and unequal power relations among languages. Most importantly, it is necessary to situate language policies within local language practices in various domains, particularly at home and an immediate community of interlocutors.

3. So, regarding the language in educational planning is concerned, do you think Nepal is following a right model? I make a reference here, many children start their early foundation of schooling from English in Nepal.

A great question, Jeevan-ji! Yet, I should be careful when I say ‘a right model’.  The notion of ‘right model’ in language-in-education planning can be hegemonic and may reproduce linguistic inequalities. Developing one ‘right model’ of language education planning may support a deficit view of language education that considers particular languages, mostly minoritised languages, problem while giving educational value to other languages. Rather than saying ‘a right mode’, I would like to use locally appropriate and linguistically sensitive approach.  This approach to language education planning recognises all children’s language practices as resource for learning, both language and academic content.

“We should embrace locally appropriate and linguistically sensitive approach for the language in education.”

Nepal’s current language education planning is extremely narrow and unable to embrace real multilingual practices. Although there is some level of awareness of the importance of multilingualism in education, at macro level, both language policy discourses and pedagogical practices reproduce monolingual ideologies of language. For example, I had an opportunity to attend two language policy-related discussions in the last five months in Kathmandu. Both discussions were attended by linguists, teacher educators, government officials and teachers. Although those programs were organised to analyse issues concerning multilingual policies in education, the discussions could not challenge rather reproduced monolingual ideologies. Mostly because the discussion questions were framed by upholding monolingual perspectives, the panelists could not go beyond linguistic boundaries and neoliberal language ideologies. For instance, most often, in one discussion, the panelists were asked to express their opinions about the use of English against multilingual education. In another discussion, panelists were focusing on a ‘trilingual policy’ (English, Nepali and one ‘mother tongue’) and analyzing that the use of minoritised languages in public domains (e.g., education) is a problematic. Both perspectives see multilingualism in education as problem and construct binary oppositions between languages. For example, in the first discussion multilingual education is presented as anti-English language teaching while the second discussion, which was intended to discuss legitimacy of ‘mother tongues’,  simply wrongly interprets ‘trilingual policy’ as multilingual policy. Such discussions invite tensions, but do not lead us to decision-making processes that are informed by academic research and on-the-ground language practices and meaning-making processes.

The increasing use of English as medium of instruction and its teaching from the pre-primary level should not simply be celebrated as a panacea, as seen in the current language education policy discourses, rather it should be understood as a part of broader ideologies, pedagogies and policies of multilingualism. I don’t mean multilingual education is anti-English, but it is, as studies have consistently shown, an incredible resource for learning English and any other languages. More importantly, it is important to understand that teaching English as a language is different from using English as language of instruction. Our policies have given space to teaching English as a compulsory subject from the first grade. Teaching of English and any other languages is not a problem, but reproducing monolingual English ideology is a grave issue.  The body of literature from language learning and teaching from multilingual contexts have identified that using students’ prior linguistic knowledge (home language) in classroom pedagogies has a transformative impact in student learning. It is important to understand that students’ communicative and academic literacy knowledge in their home language plays a foundational role in learning new languages and academic content. In the current policies and ideologies of English language teaching, we have not been able to embrace students’ multilingual competence. While embracing outmoded the-earlier-the-better and the-more-the-better ideologies, the current language policies and practices are supporting subtractive model of language education. This model eventually leads to multilingual students’ lack of access to knowledge.

4. While having research on medium of instruction, I had a talk with some of the parents from Sherpa, Rai and Magar community. I asked them what if there was a provision of educating their children in their mother tongue in schools, they said there was no scope of their language for the future of their children and hence they were not enthusiastic about what you called ‘students home language in classroom pedagogies’. Therefore, if the community feel that multilingual approach to education is not necessary for them and even not possible, why do we need this? 

I think the problem lies in how we frame our questions about language, but not with what parents and communities think about language. The problem lies in power relation constructed in our language education policies that have reproduced the dominance of particular languages, backed up by political and economic reasons for long, rather than educational and socio-cultural relevance. As you have said, parents are often asked whether they see the relevance of their home languages in relation to Nepali and English. They are asked which language(s) they prefer to be used in education. Such questions create a binary relation between languages and are deeply influenced by a monolingual ideology. But we have not asked parents what multilingual education actually is nor have they been engaged in understanding what multilingual education actually is. We have not asked an inclusive question about language and discussed with them how multilingual education is relevant to supporting quality and effective learning of all children. In other words, our questions make parents think that their home languages do not have value in education. It is not uncommon for parents to have negative attitudes towards home languages in the context where language education policies are guided by political economic rather than educational rationale.

5. The national and international policy documents assert the use of Mother-tongue-based Multi-lingual-Education. However, the practitioners say, it is next to impossible to practise it in Nepal, where more than 125 local languages are recognised. Therefore, what can be the practical solution for it? Or has the time come to look for another alternative approach?

I don’t think ‘practitioners’ are saying that multilingual education is ‘next to impossible to practice’. Indeed, in the context like Nepal, what is impossible is not to have a multilingual policy. I know that there is a dominant ideology, based on 18th/19th century European monolingual ideology, which portrays multilingualism as problem in education and other public spheres. However, as multilingualism is our reality, it will be costly, from both educational and socio-cultural perspective, to imagine and impose monolingual policies and pedagogical practices in education.  The argument that multilingual education is impossible to implement due to a greater number of languages is fundamentally flawed and reproduces a deficit view of language education. More importantly, such a view is ill-informed and not supported by any educational and language learning studies, but it is politically motivated (supporting status quo and maintaining power relations among languages). What is true, as I have mentioned above, we have not been able to engage in informed discussions and decision-making processes. Seeing multilingualism as problem in multilingual country is the byproduct of ill-informed discussions. There are schools, communities and states, around the world, that have been using multiple languages in education successfully.

Although multilingualism in education is indispensable to support effective teaching learning, the existing multilingual education policy has two major issues. First, the transitional bilingual education model which gives space for using students’ home languages (other than Nepali) up to Grade 3 only does not support students to develop academic competence in multiple languages. This model, which eventually focuses on learning of dominant languages, does not contribute to develop multilingual competence of students. Second, the policy does not provide clear guidelines towards adopting multilingual pedagogies. We can see that, both in policy documents and pedagogical practices in schools, the existing multilingual education, unfortunately seems to support monolingual ideologies. For example, I have observed that most teachers and government officials interpret multilingual education as teaching of three languages—Nepali, English and one mother tongue—separately in school. While embracing this kind of separatist ideology, teachers are discouraging the use of multiple languages for pedagogical purposes in the classroom. Teachers are not educated and empowered to use multiple languages to achieve pedagogical goals in a planned and systematic way. My point is that we have to discuss what alternative pedagogical approaches, which embrace basic principles of multilingualism in education, that do not support a separatist ideology rather embrace an inclusive and co-learning practices could an effective approach. Two-way bilingual education programs, content-integrated multilingual education, inquiry-based learning and translanguaging pedagogies are some of the alternative practices that could appropriate in Nepal. These pedagogical approaches recognize linguistic and cultural capitals of all children in teaching-learning processes. Rather than considering multilingualism as a problem, these pedagogies take all students’ languages and language practices as integral part of learning language and academic contents. While saying this, I would not argue for a one-size-fits-all approach rather I focus on the need for working with teachers, students and communities in developing pedagogical tools that best address their linguistic, cultural and educational needs.

6. How do you evaluate the English language teaching (ELT) policy and practices in Nepal? What kind of policy should be developed to fit our context?

ELT policies and practices are unplanned and deeply shaped by global neoliberal ideologies. I have always argued that learning English is necessary; however, the construction and imposition of monolingual ideology as panacea for addressing educational issues is counterproductive for both ELT and learning academic contents. Second language acquisition and literacy studies have clearly shown that students cannot learn both language and academic content effectively if they are taught in a language they are not fully competent. In this regard, there are two major issues concerning ELT in Nepal. First, a dominant misconception takes ELT and the use of English as medium of instruction (EMI) synonymously. Considering ‘compulsory English’ (as a subject of teaching from the first Grade) insufficient, there is a growing trend to adopt EMI policy to teach content area subjects such as science, mathematics, and social studies. This policy is grounded on the assumption that students learn English better if all subjects are taught in English. However, what is lacking is critical and informed discussions and analysis whether or not this policy contributes to students’ cognitive and academic investment in learning processes. A growing body of literature has suggested that teaching students in a language they are not fully competent leads to lack of access to knowledge, cognitive investment and creativity in classroom.  So the current monolingual view on ELT should be critically assessed and adopt a multilingual approach to English language pedagogy. In doing this, it is important to engage teachers in pedagogical planning to create space for multiple languages for an effective learning process, while achieving the goals of lessons.

“English is necessary; however, the construction and imposition of monolingual ideology as panacea for addressing educational issues is counterproductive for both ELT and learning academic contents.”

7. Finally, what do you suggest to a critical mass of scholars in the field of linguistics, applied linguistics and language education and ELT in Nepal?

I would like to highlight two major points. First, linguists, applied linguists and language educators, including ELT practitioners, should engage themselves in discussions that are informed by theories and findings from second language acquisition, language policy and illiteracy studies. This engagement includes understanding of both policies and practices from other multilingual contexts and critical assessment of whether or not language policies and practices are supporting students’ agency, identity and existing linguistic and cultural capital. This kind of engagement is necessary to make informed-decisions in language policy and develop alternative pedagogies in language education. Second, it is important to engage teachers, students, parents and other stakeholders in analysing language ideologies and pedagogies in order to raise their awareness of multilingualism and its importance in language education. For this, concentrated efforts should be invested in developing pedagogical tools and materials in collaboration with teachers, students and communities and implement in the classroom. Doing this will shift our attention towards embracing multilingualism as an integral aspect of education. For this, we should discuss how teachers can use multiple languages in the classroom in a planned and purposeful way. I would argue that rather than reproducing monolingual ideologies—both in policies and practices—our emphasis should be how to bridge gap, created by separatist ideology, between languages and discuss in what teachers can tap in students’ existing language competence. In sum, there is a need for reframing our language policy discourses and focus more on learners and their identities in language education.  

 

Beyond Beating Dead Horses

Critical Thinking, Education in General, , , , , , , , , , ,

From Frustration to Actions on Language Policy and Quality of Education for All

Shyam Sharma
Shyam Sharma

A couple of days ago, while I was video-chatting from here in New York with a cousin in Nawalparasi, the conversation turned to education. This thirty some year-old brother said he had discontinued education since we met a decade ago, gone to the Middle East to make money, returned home to start a wholesale store (which wasn’t doing well), and wasn’t sure what else to do. He didn’t have the desire to return to college: he didn’t see any point in pursuing higher education. “Higher education, especially if you can’t go to super-expensive private colleges, doesn’t lead to opportunity in this country,” he said. “Not anymore.” I did not know how to respond as he went on to generalize. As a fairly successful “product” of public education, I found the education part of the conversation depressing (in spite of all the joy of connecting and chatting with him about many other topics).

In rhetoric and writing courses, I teach students that effective communication depends on analysis/understanding of context, audience, medium, and purpose (CAMP). When my cousin gave me a mini lecture on education, I thought about my context (distantly chatting with a relative after a long time), audience (someone whom I didn’t want to disagree with, given his experience), medium (a video chat where the quick back-and-forth of an informal conversation didn’t facilitate deeper engagement), and purpose (it made no sense to try to challenge him on the subject of education in general). What he said was probably true for him, and it was probably true for other people in his situation or mindset. But I couldn’t stop thinking about how I as a scholar could have communicated better about education. I certainly wasn’t effective (unless giving up was an effective thing to do) and I also thought that people like me aren’t good at engaging members of the public about complex issues about education.

When I hung up and I returned to writing this post, I couldn’t help drawing analogies. Knowing what I know about the context, audience, medium, and purpose of this writing, I couldn’t find much enthusiasm to write it. I am writing in a context where many people like me have written about multilingualism as an asset, about the lack of language policy in the country, and about the dangers of monolingual instruction in the name of “quality” education. The audience, which will include mostly scholars/teachers of language and ELT, many of whom have also written many times about fundamental realities regarding language and language policy. The medium of a blog and this particular venue didn’t look like the best way to achieve my purpose (or, rather, desire) of making any impact in how the public and policy makers think about multilingualism and language policy in education.

Regardless of what a few scholars/teachers say, private schools are going to continue to sell English language (a medium) in the name of “quality education” (the objective). The Ministry of Education will remain being the dog that the mythical tails about English will continue to wag. And, even more depressing, even scholars of language will continue to repeat superficial nonsense about English. Just scroll through Facebook and you will find our most informed scholars repeating the platitude that English is “the world language”; don’t tell them that more Nepalis need Hindi and Arabic to find opportunities in the world beyond our borders. Go to fancy conferences and nobody will show exactly how teaching in English somehow magically improves education; don’t ask those who are making grand arguments with all the grand assumptions if they have research evidence since some British guy did a study in the 1980s (surprise, surprise, he found that because there weren’t enough teachers who could use English fluently, it was hurting learning). Don’t ask our scholars why they still don’t oppose English “only” as the medium of instruction in private schools, why they don’t talk about education at large, why they conflate the currently terrible situation of public education with the inevitability of public education as an approach to educating the public in a country like ours.

Like it was pointless to challenge my cousin about the value of higher education (he had figured it all out, for himself and for everyone), it also seemed to make little sense to write one more time about changing course, formulating new policies, rethinking dominant assumptions . . . regarding language teaching, language policy, and multilingualism. More broadly, I thought about how unfashionable it seems for Nepali scholars to defend and seek to improve public education, and that made me almost give up and say sorry to the editor whom I had promised a blog post for this issue.

So, what’s the point of beating the same old dead horses?

Then it dawned upon me that I was looking at the situation only through a pessimistic lens. I was failing or refusing to look at more positive things. By focusing on persisting problems, I was unable to recognize more promising developments in society. Maybe I could redirect my energies if I want to contribute more than I now do? Urging a similar shift in perspective for us as a group of language educators and public intellectuals, I would like to share some thoughts. I think that we should reframe our conversation after nearly a decade (on this forum) of focusing on realities and challenges about multilingualism and language policy in Nepal. What can those of us who are not at home contribute best—how can we better partner with colleagues on the ground? How can those of us on the ground affect policy and public opinion even better? As we strive to keep the conversation alive, what new directions could we take?

First, while we may be concerned about persisting mythologies of monolingualism and the absence of well-informed language policy, let us also recognize positive developments. People are more conscious today about the dangers of monolingualism, especially those of suppressing minority languages, than before the democratic revolution. Nothing may have happened in terms of government policy or even seriousness among scholars who could reshape language policy, but it seems to me that the questions and debates are out there in the mainstream today. Building on whatever progress we see, let us keep working to emphasize them. Let us keep calling out intellectual laziness, pointing out logical flaws, and acknowledging complex thinking about language policy. Let us continue the conversation, writing in venues that reach larger and larger audiences. Let us network with people in positions with policy or even political impact. We owe it to society to inform them—far beyond just complaining about them.

Second, let us work with the private sector to improve quality of education, to implement common sense language policy, and to use the leverage of their resource or willpower toward affecting public education as well. For example, there are a lot of private schools whose administrators and teachers are willing to invite public school teachers and administrators into training and conversations. There is a lot of goodwill (as well as desire to market brands) in the private sector. Many educators who are in the private sector also work in the public sector; many of them came from public education and they have a deep sense of loyalty and responsibility to protect and improve access to quality education regardless of financial ability of their fellow citizens, now and in the future. Many of us attack the villains in the private sector—or, rather, we see villains and ignore the average, hardworking educators and education leaders in them. This is a problem I need to overcome a little more myself :). I think we must partner a lot more than we already do with private schools, contribute our expertise, engage their leaders, and listen to them more carefully.

“We must partner a lot more than we already do with private schools, contribute our expertise, engage their leaders, and listen to them more carefully.”

Third, we should do our best to help the society stop blaming the victims—which we can start by directing our own energies from attacking the villains to appreciating those who do it right—in the public sector. For example, a lot of well-meaning intellectuals working in education (as well as people working in different professions) are angry with public school teachers for engaging in politics, for being lazy and dishonest, for their irresponsibility and unprofessional attitude. The problem with focusing our energies on what is wrong is that we may end up aggravating the problems while doing nothing toward solving them. What if we look at public school teachers as the victims and products of a certain social and political condition? What if we can contribute toward shifting their energies from politics to professional development? In some of the professional development webinar series that I did with a regional public university, I have felt very strongly that we were able to greatly encourage professors who wanted to stay away from politics and leverage the power of knowledge and change that they could affect through teacher training and professional networking. One of the most politically aggressive teachers came on board and emphasized how eager he is now to join the professional development initiatives.

Fourth, let us shift attention from discourse to practice. Of course, we should not create or reinforce false dichotomies between theory/discourse and practice: we are in a profession where talk is our trade. We talk to teach students, to train teachers, to engage the public, and to build and expand professional networks. But we should think more clearly about the outcome of our talking and writing: do we want teachers to go to class with a different mindset about language, administrators to change the current language policy, institutions to listen to us more because we speak to them? How can we develop training programs, modules, materials, and teams that can shift the focus from outdated views about language and multilingualism to practices that will empower students from different linguistic backgrounds? We can turn conversations on social media into series of webinars that involve educators and academic administrators in conversations about policy and practice.

“We can turn conversations on social media into series of webinars that involve educators and academic administrators in conversations about policy and practice.”

 

Fifth, let us reach beyond the city. Technology now allows us to expand the reach of our conversation, networking, training, and resource-sharing. I remember my cousin telling me: “If you don’t want to forget your brother, you don’t have to anymore”—telling me that he was speaking to me from a nearby petroleum pump where there was wifi. It is important, however, to be patient and realistic—both about technology and about what we want to achieve. It takes time and willingness to change our own perspective (and gain patience) when working with people in new contexts. Last year, when I landed in a small town in western Nepal after having run a yearlong webinar series on how to integrate writing across the curriculum (a series that later shifted focus into “how to implement the semester system), I was shocked to find out how bad wifi and data bandwidth were on the ground. While I was working online for nearly a year, I had only seen the few determined colleagues on the ground who must have done everything possible to find or create a fairly good connection before they talked to me: I had assumed that the same kind of connection must be available for most people. As I sat on one particular flight of stairs of a hotel in Surkhet where wifi worked—in total darkness, attacked by a thousand mosquitoes, after midnight when the connection got better—to try to answer any important emails from my university in New York, I was humbled to the point of tears. At that time, I was not as angry at the mosquitoes as I was with myself, when I remembered saying, “For future meetings, let us make sure in advance that we have good connection so that our conversation is uninterrupted.” It turns out that my colleagues would prepare for good connection but no amount of “preparation” would guarantee good wifi. These days, I am much more patient when someone isn’t there, when technology doesn’t work, when new participants need to be brought up to speed, and so on. If we keep expanding our conversation and our commitment and patience for it, we will be able to look back with pride in ten more years—both regarding language policy work and regarding the quality and impact of education at large.

Finally, let us not be afraid or shy to speak our minds. We have seen a lot of negativity against scholars who tried to share their ideas, even when they didn’t challenge established power structures. I don’t know where all the leg-pullers have gone, but we have seen those who continued to share knowledge thrive and grow and make bigger and bigger impacts on society. If you have ideas and energy, come join the conversation here; contribute to other venues if your ideas better fit there; comment and like and repost and having fun learning and sharing ideas on various blogs and other social media. We must invest more of our energies for maximum impact, and one of the ways of doing that is to keep writing and connecting and supporting others. Since we started this humble venue in 2009, I have observed how many contributors and facilitators of this forum have realized their potentials—especially by contributing to the potentials and progress of others.

Let us keep giving back to the profession, the society, and the world! Thank you for reading this post, and hopefully for writing (more) for Choutari in the future.

 

Editorial (July 2015 Issue): EFL teachers in ‘super-difficult circumstance’

Critical Thinking, Editorial, Education in General, EducationInEmergency,

Namaste and welcome to the July 2015 issue of Choutari!

We hope you enjoyed our June issue which also focuses on education and EFL teaching in Nepal’s post-disaster situation. You can read the issue here.

In this issue, we have three blog posts and a photography project. In my own article, I have discussed the preliminary findings of the survey on the role of EFL teachers in Nepal’s post-disaster situation, which I call “super-difficult circumstance.” The teachers’ responses reveal a multitude of difficulties (e.g., psycho-social, educational and economic challenges) caused by the recent earthquake. Most importantly, the findings of the survey reveal the “transformative agency” of EFL teachers who transgress the “schooled pedagogy” and can create their own “pedagogy of disaster” to help their students recover from the traumatic experience.

In the second post, Nirjana Sharma, an education journalist based in Kathmandu, shares a featured news story based on her observation of the schools on the resumption after a month-plus unscheduled holidays following the earthquake. 

July Issue of ChoutariIn another article, Dinesh Thapa shares with us his own involvement in the relief and recovery operations in the earthquake-affected areas. He begins with telling his own story and discusses empirical findings about how people are affected by the earthquake. His article is a testimony to redefining the role of “teacher-as-researcher” and an important material for EFL teaching.

Praveen Kumar Yadav’s post focuses on his own classroom experience teaching his students after the earthquake. His story documents the importance of teachers’ role in facilitating the earthquake-related discussions in EFL lessons. More strikingly, the way in which he has framed the devastating stories in his “world literature” course resonates what I call the “pedagogy of disaster.”

The Choutari team always explores new ways to promote pedagogical discussions among EFL teachers. We have initiated a “photography project” for EFL teaching. Influenced by the Critical Photography Theory” (Wells, 2015) and the “Critical Art Pedagogy” (Cary, 2011), the goal of this project is to promote the use of photos/pictures in EFL teaching.

Table of contents
  1. From ‘schooled pedagogy’ to ‘pedagogy of disaster’: The role of EFL teachers in the super-difficult circumstance of post-disaster Nepal, by Prem Phyak
  2.  School resumption brings smiles to children, by Nirjana Sharma
  3. The impacts of the earthquake on education: Contemplation of an EFL teacher, by Dinesh Thapa
  4. I survived and have a story to tell, by Praveen Kumar Yadav
  5. The photography project’: Pictures in EFL teaching, by Choutari Team

I hope you enjoy reading this issue.

Happy readings!

Prem Phyak (Guest editor)

(With Praveen Kumar Yadav)

From ‘schooled pedagogy’ to ‘pedagogy of disaster’: The role of EFL teachers in the super-difficult circumstance of post-disaster Nepal

Critical Thinking, EducationInEmergency, ELT Resource,
Prem Phyak
Prem Phyak

Introduction

The memory of taking classes in a temporary shelter made up of bamboo and tin after the 1988 earthquake is still vivid in my memory. The two-story building of my school on the slope of the mountain village in eastern Nepal was very badly shaken by the earthquake. We could not take classes in the old building. The villagers, teachers, and students worked very hard for many days to build a temporary shelter and run classes. I still remember that in the shelter we used to read aloud “Hello Sita, Hello Ram. Knock, Knock. Knock, Knock” to let our teachers know that we are engaged in doing our tasks. Many times, we could not take classes due to rain and storm. I don’t quite remember how our teachers helped us recover from dreadful experience from the disaster, but the Friday cultural programs and the outdoor activities including field trips were part of fun activities. I wish I had a camera or a cell phone to take the pictures of classes in the shelter during that time. Nobody in the village had these devices then. The situation now has changed a lot. The villagers have cellphones to take pictures and upload them on Facebook to share with wider audience about the updates from the village. We have seen the “social media power” during and post-disaster stage of the April 25 earthquake.

The 7.8 magnitude (April 25, 2015), followed by hundreds of aftershocks including the 7.4 magnitude (May 12, 2015)– took  more than 9,000 people’s lives  and destroyed more than 510,762 homes. Various news reports show that more than 25,000 classrooms of 8,000 schools have to be rebuilt. BCC estimates that more than 90% of schools are destroyed in the hardest-hit districts such as Sindhupalchok, Dolakha, Gorkha, Rasuwa, and Ramechhap. The government estimates the costs of $7 billion, a third of the country’s gross domestic product, to rebuild the damaged physical infrastructures. However, what is missing from the discussion is how to help about two million children who are directly affected by the disaster. While the school dropout has been a thorny issue even before the earthquake, this disaster might further contribute to the increase the dropout rate. UNICEF estimates that more than 1.2 million Nepali children (5-16 years old) are out of school and warns that thousands of children may not join school if appropriate measures are not developed in the post-earthquake stage. Since many children from rural villages have to be relocated in other safe places, they may not find a conducive environment and support to go to school and fully participate in educational activities.

In this blog post, I present the preliminary findings of an ongoing survey research on the role of EFL teachers in the “super-difficult circumstance” of the post-disaster Nepal.  I am using the term “super-difficult circumstance” to embrace the multitude of issues connected with the recent earthquake. I argue that this disaster is not just an earthquake but the convergence of other cascading disasters such as landslides, flooding, and food shortage that directly impacts on children’s educational activities. Moreover, the super-difficult circumstance not only includes lack of physical infrastructures (e.g., school buildings, furniture), but also, and most importantly, complex socio-cultural, economic and political ecology that affect smooth operation of educational activities in the post-disaster situation of Nepal.

The language of disaster: What should EFL teachers know?

Disaster, which affects our daily lives, society, and economy, has never been the focus of English language teaching. Due to the disciplinary boundary, disaster has often been taught as a content of science, geography/social studies, and environmental/population studies. However, the global occurrences of disasters (e.g., hurricane, typhoon, earthquake, flooding, drought, and glacial lake outburst) is increasingly affecting our lives. The world has already experienced numerous disasters in which millions of people died. The Tōhoku Earthquake/Tsunami (2011, Japan), East Africa Drought (2011, East Africa), Haiti Earthquake (2010, Haiti), Pakistan Earthquake (2005, Pakistan), Hurricane Katrina (2005, USA), and Indian Ocean Earthquake (2004, Indonesia), among others, have already taught us so many lessons about disaster management and humanitarian assistance. Should EFL teachers be aware of such disasters and their impacts? How can they contribute to responding to such disasters through teaching?

Of course, EFL teachers should be aware of various types of disasters and help their students become more resilient to cope with traumatic experiences from disasters. The first thing that EFL teachers can do is to incorporate and help students understand various disaster-related concepts in their lessons. The integration of the disaster-related topics definitely enriches vocabulary and the content level awareness of students.

“Disaster” is not easy to define. It literally refers to a sudden event or calamity that causes physical destruction and human suffering. Although there is a debate on the meaning of the term “disaster”, the near consensus definition is: a situation or event, which overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a request to national or international level for external assistance [The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)]. Other terms such as “catastrophe” and “calamity” are also used to describe disaster. Two important points we should be aware of are: a) disaster can be used as a cover term which includes all kinds of incidents or events that cause human sufferings; b)  as Enrico Quarantelli, a famous scholar of the  sociology of disaster, argues, disasters are not always “natural” but  a “social phenomenon”. Quarantelli and his colleagues argue that disasters are deeply rooted in the social structure; the location of the people, their sociopolitical and economic status, and the type of governance. Although EFL teachers may not contribute to the technical aspect of disaster, they can be instrumental in addressing social issues surrounding disaster.

The recent “Nepal earthquake” has revealed a number of sociocultural issues that EFL teachers can discuss in the classroom to help their students develop “critical language awareness.” In the previous issue of Choutari, Charlotte Benham analyzes various lessons that EFL teachers can learn from the recent disaster. She argues that EFL teachers can learn how some people are unequally affected by the recent disaster and engage their students in a critical analysis of social inequalities as seen in the relief and recovery operations. A number of scholars from other disciplines (such as anthropology, political science, sociology, education, and economics) have highlighted the need for a social justice approach in the “relief”, “rehabilitation”, “recovery”, and “rebuilding” stage of disaster. In the same issue of Choutari, Rojita Adhikari, Neha Shah, Anuradha Sharma, Chetan K Timilsina and Jeevan Karki present on-the-ground experiences and lessons learned from the disaster. EFL teachers can learn many important lessons from their stories. They all highlight the role of teachers as a “change agent” and a “resilient actor” in the post-disaster Nepal.

On a positive note, the recent earthquake has given us rich corpus of language that EFL teachers can use in the classroom. Local, national, and international newspapers have paid a due attention to the Nepal earthquake and documented it in different forms (text, audio, image, and video). Teachers can easily access these materials and use in the classroom. Some key vocabulary words that are used in newspapers include: magnitude, rubble, reeling, avalanche, aftershocks, tremor, epicenter, victims, donors, mitigation, rebuilding, temporary shelter, relocation, resistance, settlements, perish, assurance, high-rise building, trigger, death toll, rescue, emergency, charity, trauma, jolt, shocking, resume, tent, makeshift, ravage, woe, grapple, volunteer, soaring, wipe out, desperate, devastating, injured, limp back , decease, massive, strike, drone, chopper etc. Teachers can use these words in their lessons in multiple ways. Other words/phrases that promote students’ critical thinking include: poverty, corruption, caste-system, untouchability, social exclusion, unequal distribution, poor, rich, urban, rural, overhead costs, rotten rice, discrimination, leftover, (lack of)access to power, NGO-graphy etc. These words/phrases can be used as a base for critical language awareness in EFL classes. However, this requires teachers to transgress “the schooled pedagogy”–the scripted pedagogy adopted in school curricula–and be aware of sociocultural issues connected with the disaster. This “pedagogy of disaster” is collectively built on the life experiences of students, teachers, and communities.

The preliminary findings of the survey

I am receiving encouraging responses from the EFL teachers; out of 100, 25 EFL teachers have already responded to the survey. As an ongoing research the final results of this survey will be shared in the future issues of Choutari. In what follows, I present the preliminary findings.

Trauma and the super-difficult circumstance: All the respondent-teachers have gone through traumatic experiences in the post-earthquake stage. Although there was no any human casualty in their own and immediate relatives’ family, these teachers had “a very traumatic experience” as they were trembled by “the series of main shocks and aftershocks”. One teacher recounts that “all my family members were worried, nervous, confused and restless” while another teacher says he is so much terrified and could not find any “strategy to be free.” Four respondent-teachers have lost their houses and twelve teachers’ school buildings are destroyed. They have to prepare temporary shelters to run classes. Three teachers reveal that they are “financially affected” as they are jobless due to their workplace closure for one and a half months. All the respondent-teachers spent their nights in a tent for 15-25 days. The 65.5 per cent of teachers say that the earthquake has destroyed their schools/colleges/universities that cannot be used for educational activities. Twenty-eight percent of them mention that they are deeply affected by the “loss of their students”. Three teachers report that some students “have not come back” as they lost their houses. One university teacher mentions that they are running their classes in a private college in Kathmandu as the building of their university cannot be used for educational activities. Some major issues reported by the EFL teachers are as follows:

  • Less individual attention, no focus on teaching, and traumatic feelings all the time.

All students are not present in class. They have gone to Terai in their relatives home fearing the frequent aftershocks. Students are not in complete mood of learning, in a way they have lost enthusiasm in learning after the quake.

No readiness for learning. Still aftershocks are trembling them so they feel insecure at school as buildings have cracks somewhere.

  • Students fear of another quake.

Students are not comfortable in the class. School buildings have cracks so they are frightened.

Even the sound of the vehicles make them feel earthquake tremor. They do not dare to sit even in the tent.

Not all but some of them are still afraid of earthquake. For example, they are reluctant to go to their previous classroom on the third floor of the building.

Yes, they are afraid. They try to stay out of the enclosed area. They have completely forgotten their assignments and deadlines.

  • Student cannot concentrate on their subject matter while teaching (they always relate the example or substance of teaching with earthquake).

Many of my students have cracked buildings in their village and their parents and relatives are in very difficult situation. So, students are frustrated and they are not able to concentrate on their study. It’s been very difficult for them to follow the normal time table. They are still restless and worried. In addition to this, there are cracks in the college building and students feel insecure to attend class in rooms which are located in the upper level.

They feel a bit better now as they would like to continue their study after the quake but they still have a fear that earthquake might come again. The Facebook rumor of big earthquake coming has affected their psychology.

The role of EFL teachers in the recovery

The respondent-teachers have contributed to providing relief materials to the earthquake survivors in many ways. They have raised funds, collected food, provided drinking water, participated in rescue operations, distributed medicine, and made shelters for the survivors. These teachers have played very critical role to help their students recover from the deep traumatic experiences from the disaster. Some of the major activities these teachers have done in their classes are as follows:

Counseling: Most of the respondent-teachers have provided counselling services to their students after the reopening of their schools. One teacher says “we have talked to our students and suggested that they should not be worried”.  Another teachers reveals that “we have tried to look and act normal.” These teachers have shared with their students the information about the disaster and how they can remain alert. Some of the teachers have also helped to build temporary learning centers where their students feel safer to learn before they go to school. These teachers have also helped their students buy books, stationery, bags, and uniforms.

Sharing experiences: The majority of the respondent-teachers encouraged students to share their personal experiences in class.  One teacher recounts “I started the class with sharing about the experience. Also asked the students to share how they helped the more unfortunate members of the community.” These teachers also engaged students in making plans to respond to the future disaster. For example, one of the teachers says:

 We all shared our stories together in the beginning, and I talked about the Psychological First Aid (PFA) on the first day of the class. We also talked about how we helped other people in trouble and how we should be helping them in the future. I told them that disasters like earthquake are natural and they come without any alert and we need to face them.

Another teacher shares:

I have started the class narrating my story of survival in the earthquake. The theme or topic of that day’s class was “I survived & I have a story to tell”. I first told them my story and asked them to share their stories of survival. Though the students felt hesitant to share their story, I facilitated them and gave them freedom to use any language and to use any format of storytelling, which they find convenient. As a result, the class became so interesting later. The next days, I have started teaching them with flexible time without sticking to the time schedule of a session. I am not teaching them seriously like I did before the earthquake. The flexible lesson and methods as per their convenience are used in the class so that they will not feel any burden in their mind while teaching. These days, I have stopped giving serious assignments, e.g. in written form but just reading assignment. I chose more interactive sessions which I believe can help them recover from the shock.

Fun activities: Some respondent-teachers are also doing various fun activities with the students. One teacher, for example, has shared her “muktak and gajal” with the class to help students forget the deep shock and sense of fear. Another teacher does not like the idea of sharing personal stories. He believes that it is necessary to “divert their mind to other topics [by] involving them in various creative, fun and entertaining activities such as painting, music, dance and funny quizzes including games.” Some of the respondent-teachers have also used songs, jokes, and newspaper readings as part of classroom activities.

Integrating disaster-related topics in EFL lessons

The respondent-teachers did not include the disaster-related topics in their lessons in the past. But they have started incorporating them after the recent earthquakes. While responding to the question of whether or not he includes the disaster-related topics in his lessons, one of the respondent-teachers asserts that:

Not much in the past but now I do include the disaster-related topics in my lesson. Yesterday, I was teaching them Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and we discussed at quite length how we can engage the students in discussion to rebuild Nepal. My students came up with some wonderful activities that can be used in high school English class.

Likewise, another teacher says that “I frequently show them movies and videos for taking precautions about the quake.” Some of the respondent-teachers have already started engaging students in developing plans for staying safe in the future disasters. For example, one respondent has already “asked the students to draw pictures of the scene they have seen in and around their homes; to tell me stories they have; to tell me how they felt during and after the quake; to draw pictures on how they can stay safe etc.” These teachers are also engaging students in critical thinking activities and make them aware of how the disaster has affected some people unequally. For example, one of the respondent-teachers ask his students to discuss how the people in Tundikhel [temporary shelters] are living; how they manage food every day; and what they do during rainy days. At the same time, these teachers are also aware of the fact that the repetition of the disaster-related stories might keep students thinking about the devastation. For example, a teacher argues that “I do not want to continue …talking about disaster [as it] will further affect the students. One of students told me that she did not like to hear more about the earthquake as she has already been fed up of listening about it through family, media and friends.”

Conclusions

The preliminary findings of the survey show two critical points. First, it shows that  EFL teachers in the Nepal’s post-disaster situation are, going beyond the “schooled pedagogy”, focusing on the “pedagogy of disaster’ which includes multiple activities inside and outside of the classroom. By participating in rescue, relief, and recovery activities, the EFL teachers have redefined their role as a “change agent” and demonstrated profound agency to the rebuilding of the country. Second, the EFL teachers have shown their critical awareness about the issues associated with the disaster. As one of the teachers argues, the earthquake survivors should not be treated as “beggars” rather they should be considered as a source of knowledge. The storytelling activities alongside counseling and the integration of disaster-related topics in EFL lessons are important classroom strategies for teachers to help students cope with the traumatic experience from the disaster. Following Arjun Appadurai (1996), a famous sociocultural anthropologist and a major theorist in globalization studies, I reiterate that it is important for EFL teachers to engage students to “document” the stories and experiences from Nepal’s earthquake and share them with the global ELT community. This process will not only help EFL teachers develop teaching materials and an archive of knowledge, but also raises students’ critical awareness about society, culture and education.

References 

Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity al large: cultural dimensions of globalization (Vol. 1). U of Minnesota Press.

Quarantelli, E. L. (Ed.). (2005). What is a disaster?: a dozen perspectives on the question. Routledge.

[Acknowledgement: I would like to thank all the teachers who responded to the survey.]

School Resumption Brings Smiles to Children

Education in General, EducationInEmergency
IMG_2382
NIRJANA SHARMA

 

Attendance was encouraging on the first day children returned to school Sunday, 37 days after the devastating earthquake rocked Nepal.

The month-plus unscheduled holidays have come to an end. But the tremors have not. Amid aftershocks striking every single day, children in most Valley schools not only managed to bring smiles back to their faces, but also boosted the confidence of their teachers about continuing with the classes.

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Arman at the center

Five-year-old Arman Khan had gotten admission to nursery class at Durbar High School in the first week of Baisakh, when the new academic session started. But his first day of classes took place only on Sunday. No one asked him to read or write anything. All he had to do was sing and dance along with other children.

At this oldest school of the country, the children paid no attention to the collapsed infrastructure and instead enjoyed the cultural program at the Temporary Learning Centre set up by the school.

Rojina Lama, 13, and her 11-year-old brother Kumar were witness to many old structures collapsing in Thimi on April 25. And their home in Dhading district is now only a memory. But all that was not enough to keep the siblings away from their Adarsha Secondary School at Sanothimi, Bhaktapur.

DSC_6363

DSC_6379

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We are happy to come to school and hope to resume our studies soon,” they said while walking in the streets of Thimi.

School teacher Roshani Shrestha at VS Niketan Montessor shared that those who came in the morning crying also seem to have forgotten everything and were playing happily.

For eight-year-old Younish Shrestha, it was a little different. The paper-made ‘smiling’ hairband did not match his expression. About the reason for his sadness, he said, “I enjoyed the holidays and wished they could be extended for more days still.” Roshani explained Younish’s attitude in terms of general child psychology and the tendency to keep avoiding school when there has been a long gap.

Sixth grader Rahul Yadav of SOS School, Sanothimi says he found the earthquake-related information at schools quiet boring.

“We have been facing earthquakes every day and watching the awareness messages on TV and the internet and it was boring to see the same things repeated at school,” he said. Rahul’s mother Bina nodded and suggested that the schools impart quake-related education in a more interesting way.

Less than half of students attend at most Valley schools

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Around 70 students made it to Durbar High School where the enrollment was around 225 during the last session. Out of 1,000 students, hardly 350 reached Nobel Academy at New Baneshwor.

Nobel Principal Rishikesh Wagle said most of the students who have gone to the districts with their families are yet to return.

“It is mainly children who have gone to their homes outside the Valley who are yet to return,” said Wagle.

At VS Niketan Montessor at Tinkune, 87 out of the 200 toddlers managed to come, whereas 250 out of 500 students at Suryodaya School attended.

PABSON, an umbrella organization of private and boarding schools, said that around 40 percent of students came to school. But the numbers are expected to increase gradually as the guardians see more and more children doing so, said PABSON Chairperson Lachhya Bahadur KC

PABSON has estimated that around 15 percent of the children might not return to the Valley following the quake. KC said this was no bother for private schools, which would soon begin classes in full form as per the interest shown by students.

“The senior class students have shown interest in returning to full-form classes,” said KC. If the aftershocks become milder, schools would resume formal classes for grades 9 and 10, he mentioned.

The Department of Education (DoE)said that most of the schools managed to gather students in their makeshift classrooms for amusement and extracurricular activities, as earlier planned, to help them overcome the post-quake trauma.

“We have received good vibes from the badly-devastated districts and this has encouraged the government to gear up for full fledged classes soon,” said DoE Director Khagendra Nepal.

Stressed guardians wait outside for children

fThough some schools such as St. Xavier’s at Jawalakhel restricted media from the school premises, guardians were allowed to accompany their children to the classrooms.

Some of the schools engaged the guardians also in their activities, and in most schools the guardians waited outside for more than two hours until the school wrapped up for the day.

At the premises of Suryodaya School at Dillibazar and at Maitidevi-based Universal Academy, which was damaged by the quake, the guardians could manage a smile on seeing their children singing and dancing.

Engineer Shambhulal Kayastha took his eight-grader granddaughter Bhumika to Nobel Academy from Koteshor. This was the third time Kayastha has been to the school within a week.

“The green sticker at the building did not reassure me untill I examined the infrastructure myself,” 60-year-old Kayastha told Republica while waiting for Bhumika at the school premises.

Nobel carried out yoga, meditation and cultural programs alternatively, dividing the students into different groups. Guardians witnessed similar activities from a distance at VS Niketan as well.

Like many, Sunita Maharjan said that fear of strong tremors during school hours prevented her feet from leaving the school area.

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The author is education journalist with Republica English National Daily in Nepal. She originally published it in Republica and blogged for ELT CHOUTARI.