Innovation
Education
Technology
Innovation
Education
Technology
In Nepal, children's opportunities in life and the quality of education they receive are often determined based on when and where they were born. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 stipulates that education is a fundamental right. Investments focused on access and enrollment over the decade have increased the gross enrollment rate at the primary level from 65.9% (in 1999) to 96% (in 2019) School enrollment, primary (% net) - Nepal | Data (worldbank.org). Despite significant policy advances and maximum student attendance in classrooms, Nepal faces challenges in providing high-quality public education to its 7 million students. More than half of students enrolled in public schools in Nepal do not complete their schooling. This problem is even more acute among marginalized groups like the female, Dalit community,Madheshi, Tharu, Muslim, Janjati and other indegenous group as well students coming from low economic background. The current crisis in the Nepali public school system has widened our social and economic gaps rather than narrowing them. In fact, the system has failed to deliver on its promise in education.
Two-thirds of all children in Nepal attend public schools. There is inequity in the education sector as only 12% of children from the lowest wealth quintile who attend public schools are developmentally on track in foundational literacy and numeracy skills compared to 65% of the highest wealth quintile attending private schools. The statistic is partially the result of a public school system where only the self motivated students thrive while students who struggle are left behind. Intervention at public schools remains a significant challenge, with most primary public school students unable to read at grade level. As a result of weak foundation students in public school have low learning outcome in the secondary level. Though multiple factors effect the learning outcome of the students, lack of teacher (competent) and appropriate resources is the major challenge. Even in current time, Nepal lacks around 50 thousand public school teachers. Around 90% of candidates failed the Teachers Exam for primary grade license in recent time. Government, development organization and private institutions are working to fill the gap of the teachers. However, teacher shortage problem is massive and the existing effort can not ensure in bringing the solution.
In the rural community, the teaching learning process is limited to the available schools operating time. The sad part is that the official school opening days are less than half a year, the effective teaching learning is very minimal even in those limited days(Reference) The grim reality of the education sector which is complex in its nature, has made further challenges to bring sustainable impact in the education sector.
The nationwide lockdown and the extended closure of academic institutions due to the pandemic brought to fore the critical situation of the public education system in Nepal. As per data, around eight million students’ learning have been affected by the pandemic. A lot of innovative teaching methods were introduced and currently continued to ensure that there is minimum loss to children’s learning. Teaching via the internet through online classes, radio programs, delivery of study material to students, phone consultations with teachers were some of the methods promoted by different development partners. The use of various methods depended upon the economic capacity of schools as well as the students. As evident, private schools in cities were able to continue classes in spite of the lockdown via online classes where students not only had access to the IT infrastructure but also had the required technical competency at home. However, in terms of rural public schools, schools did not have the required infrastructure, teachers were not competent enough to execute classes completely online and students also lacked the physical resources as well as the technical competency required.
A lot of discussion on how the pandemic experience can pave a new way for innovative teaching in Nepal is going on , which in some way is true. However, given the capacity of public-school teachers it seems a bit over ambitious to start that discussion when most public-school teachers and trainers lack the basic understanding of IT infrastructures and how to run it. Using social apps, modern methods of teaching etc seem far-fetched ambitions when the public- school teachers sometimes struggle with turning on and off digital devices. The effect of this challenge faced by the teachers in public school reflects in students as well. Students in public school do not get a proper mentor/teacher for them to get familiar with technology.
Innovative Learning Center aims to improve the learning outcome of students of the community with the blending approach of in person support and ICT integration. Students will be supported by local youths working as academic facilitators as a part of their before and/or after school engagement and during the holidays.. The objectives of ILC is to bring together the local youths, children and other community members for a sustainable progress of the children both academically and socially. The proposed activity aims at installing the values of social responsibility towards their community so that they are self-reliant to bring transformation in the community in the future and act as local resources for sustainability. With the involvement of local youths and other community stakeholders, the proposed activity aims in building ownership collaboration among themselves.
