Challenges for the English Curriculum

As you know, Grades 11 and 12 were founded at Janata Higher Secondary School on the basis of the support of Tom and Donna. This program has been very beneficial for the school in some aspects. Many students who were too poor to study away from home at a private school or boarding school were enabled to receive a higher level of education. I will now outline the situation as I see because there is a crisis with Grade 12.
After the Tiffin interval yesterday, AKA lunch, I walked outside of the teachers lounge after losing a match of chess to get some sun and warmth. The bell had just rung, and so the students were expected to go back to class. A bunch of my 12th graders were hanging around and lingering in a large group outside the school. I walked up to them and asked why they weren’t going to class, and one of the students said in a defeated tone, “We all failed sir.”
This was shocking to hear of course. Of the 21 currently enrolled students in 12th grade, only 2 have passed the requisite nationwide standardized test they must take in April to carry on from Grade 11 to 12. So in effect, they were not eligible to be in 12 at all…
However, there is some good news regarding this. 11 of the students only failed in one exam. They must take 5 exams, of which they must score 35 out of 100 to pass. The 5 exams cover subjects such as compulsory English, compulsory Nepali, Economics, Sociology, Introduction to Education, Educational Pedagogy, Mathematics, optional English, and optional Nepali. Those are all courses they may take. The course every student that failed was compulsary English.
So, 11 students may be able to stay within the 12th grade by taking a supplementary exam. Hopefully a few of them may pass this exam, but the odds are slim. The score of the highest failing student was a 22, 13 below the required 35. Too many of the students did not even have scores in the double digits. This obviously highlights a central problem that is afflicting Janata, that is how can you offer successful Higher Secondary Schooling if the students cannot pass the national examination?
This Grade 12 is the first class of HSS at Janata. Obviously you would expect problems with the first class, but this situation seems fairly severe. Here are a few of the troubles facing the school:

· Students failing one or even two subjects may still carry on to the next grade. In this way, a student may never catch up once they fall behind in a given subject. This carries on up until Grade 10, when they may officially graduate.
· The school is a government school. The difference is that parents are willing to pay more money when they send their child to boarding school, but not so for government schools. A boarding school student may receive 900 Rs of textbooks and workbooks, whereas a government school student may receive 200-300 Rs of textbooks and workbooks.
· The English teachers may not be fulfilling the needs of the children to prepare them for the road ahead. English is taught in English and Nepali. However, very little spoken English is actually used in the classroom, and nearly everything is explained in Nepali.
· There are no media outlets here that provide English media such as magazines, newspapers, books, TV, or what have you. There is a 15-minute English news segment on Radio Nepal. There are few people who speak passable conversational English and little opportunity to practice, imitate, or model speech.
· In Grade 12 I have a student that is 23, and students that are 16. A seven- year age gap seems quite significant.

I may have missed some other elements but I think you will get the idea of why 19 out of 21 failed. It is fairly discouraging but there are several ways of addressing the issue. This most likely involves changing the way that English is taught and convincing the headmaster that this is necessary. If they must pass compulsory English in Higher Secondary School, the problem is not just within the HSS curriculum but within the secondary curriculum and perhaps even primary too.
It takes many years to acquire and master a language, and after looking at a study guide for an SLC exam for 9th and 10th grade I can safely say that the current 10th graders are nowhere near the level of comprehension required to successfully complete the test. During our travels we would encounter many young persons in cities who would come up to us and start talking to us. Generally their English was much better than the students at Sarkuwa. There is a nationwide standard but I have a feeling that the standard for English is unfair for the rural areas.
They suffer from a poverty of information in English and a lack of English speakers, which is more prevalent in the developed areas. I get the feeling most volunteer English teachers, of which there are a lot, teach in the cities such as Pokhara or Kathmandu. So how can we attempt to remedy the situation? English speakers obviously help, but the length of our stay and the month long vacation add up to a small change.
Supplemental materials such as audio books or perhaps educational DVD movies could greatly benefit the students if they were used. Of course proper textbooks would go a long way towards advancing them towards their goal, but the trouble here is that a lot of books are required and they must match up with nationwide course expectations. Students that fail English should not be passed onto the next grade if the school is serious about preparing students properly for HSS and university or college. As much as I hate to say it, a certain amount of teaching the exams wouldn’t hurt either. The students must be fully prepared for what will be on the test.
Anyhow, this is my feeling at the near end of our time here. It came as quite a shock when we learned of this yesterday, and had we known some of the problems facing Janata perhaps we could have come better prepared.

Now onto some much lighter news. Today there was a wedding near the school and one of the teachers, Tila, was the bride! We were invited by a gift of a packet of sweets that is the customary individual invitation. The wedding began at 11:00 AM although I am not sure what this actually entailed besides loud music drifting into the classrooms. Then, near Tiffin interval, the sound of a rampaging pack of elephants could be heard coming down the mountain! Ok, it was not in fact a rampaging pack of elephants but the groom’s procession, accompanied by a traditional Nepali wedding band.
A long line of men in Topis streamed down the mountain to the bride’s families’ house. Zach and I followed them down with the other teachers and watched as the arriving men from the groom’s side received a special Tika upon entering a banana leaf gate. Everyone clustered around the Bride and Groom and red rice was passed around. Some rite was performed and then everyone threw the red rice into the air as a celebration. Then they were taken away, the music started and an older man began to dance, looking graceful at times and like his legs were about to buckle at others.
We were taken down past the party to eat which is a customary requirement of participating in the wedding. So all the teachers sat down and dined on straw mats. They served us Dalbhat with some curried goat meat and curried vegetables. For desert there were little balls of millet that were very sweet and tasted like Raxi, sort of like those brandy candies.
After eating we went and looked at the Bride and Groom for a while. She looked beautiful and was wearing exquisite clothes laced with gold thread and had her hair done up. She did not look up though. I guess the bride is not allowed to do so. The groom was looking pretty spiffy as well in a fancy Topi, suit, and sunglasses. There were many bowls of spices and brightly colored mixtures laying around. Opposite them were the brides parents and perhaps the grooms parents. It wasn’t explained and everything happened very quickly.
We were then taken back to the main party where small groups of people would take turns dancing. Of course, everyone upon seeing us immediately insisted that we dance to honor the newlyweds. So Zach and I danced to the rampaging elephant music, complete with atonal trumpeting, and then the music became faster and faster so we danced faster and crazier, and then it slowed to a halt as did we. Everyone was cheering, and feeling like we had done our part, we tried slinking back into the crowd but the initial older dancer insisted that we dance a second time. So we did! After we had honored the wedding in such a manner it was time to get back to school, although the whole way we were accompanied by swathes of our screaming students requesting that we dance more. Apparently we were a hit.
We finished up the day at school as the wedding continued below. All the students and teachers were complimenting our dancing and requesting more. I danced for the 12th grade after they got a hard question right. After school we were summoned backed down to the wedding, where immediately they wanted us to dance some more. So we danced three more dances in front of the band and crowd to much cheering and revelry.
Everyone wanted to shake our hands, and then the band got up and everyone began moving towards where the Bride and Groom were. The band played and lots of people were dancing now, and then we saw the Groom carrying the Bride on his back. He led the procession up the mountain, and most of the wedding-goers followed them up the mountain, with the Brides family remaining. He took her to his house somewhere up Sarkuwa, where she will now live. Probably there will be much revelry tonight.

That’s all I have for today. THAT’S ALL? You say. Yes. It is. One more computer is on it’s way out so we are back down to two in term of functionality. I am trying to fix this computer but so far cannot figure out what is wrong with it. It has no CD drive so I can’t use the repair tools. Disk Check has been performed successfully. It blue screens after 5-10 minutes of use or sometimes gives a blue screen on startup that says that the BIOS software is incompatible with the . It may have a virus, as foreign software has been installed but it has no virus protection. Probably fixable if Windows is replaced with Linux. Ok That’s All Folks!

David

PS Prem Thapa at Sarkuwa has the most computer training and seems most able. However he speaks little English. Next up is Tek Thapa. His English is better, but not by much. He does not have training but is learning quite fast and is very enthusiastic. Also, if it could be arranged for Hari Paudel to be there when they arrive, I am sure that it would be extremely beneficial for both the Janata staff and the GCI and Shanti. He is very knowledgable about computers and speaks decent English, two qualities that are not shared in any other person I’ve met in this area.

PSS Hopefully when I send this I will have remembered to actually attach the Google Earth locations. I didn’t last time, which is why it didn’t work. As always, this is a prerecorded message and will be sent in a blitz of internet usage to reduce modem time. Sayanara.