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Annapurnas: Education in Nepal
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The Maya Foundation --
by Rene Voss
I came to Nepal for the first time in 2003. I discovered a beautiful country with lovely people. However, my enchantment turned into despair when I came into contact with the Nepali educational system in a small rural community in the foothills of the Annapurnas. I volunteered to teach at the local primary school and after a year I started the Maya Foundation to promote help to the Nepalese schoolchildren at a truly grassroots level. Three years later, I still live in the same community.
The government in Nepal has only been active in the field of education for the past 50 years. Its focus is still on school buildings. Teachers, supplies and the quality of teaching are completely outside the scope of the government's policy. In Nepal, education in the rural areas still and foremost takes the form of rote learning. The teacher talks (usually with a load voice; therefore to scream better describes the vocal activity of a Nepali teacher) and the children listen. The teachers try to drill knowledge into young brains, with the help of a bamboo stick if needed. There are no teaching materials whatsoever; there is no learning through playing or learning through doing; there are no activities, neither single nor in small groups; there is no stage in the learning process of practicing or producing anything with the knowledge acquired. Today, in rural Nepal, the approach is clearly teacher oriented.
Our vision, at the Maya Foundation, is child oriented; we look at education through the eyes of the child. Children need an affectionate and inspiring environment in which they can develop fully and become who they really are-beautiful children of Mother Earth.
Global context of the need for Early Childhood Education In 1990, 155 countries drafted the World Declaration on Education for All (EFA). Almost two decades ago, the importance of early childhood education was already stated. Unfortunately, in the rural areas of Nepal, not much was really done about it. It wasn't until the beginning of 2006 that UNESCO, through its daughter organization IIEP, finally gave full attention to it. If the vicious cycle of inequality is to be broken, then child care and education have to start very early, before primary school. In most developing countries, early childhood education is restricted to urban middle-class children. Children from rural areas and low-income families not only are denied access to this kind of education, but they enter primary school later than other children. If inequalities are to be reduced, and if education is to benefit disadvantaged children, much more attention has to be given to providing early childhood care and education for the poor. And while it is great to finally have recognition for it, what children really need in rural Nepal today is the actual early childhood center, free of charge, with the actual teachers and the actual teaching materials to bring it into their daily lives and to make it all happen. Talking is fine for policy makers, but children living under poor conditions need actions, not words.
Actions:
The Maya Foundation is doing just that: opening up early childhood centers in rural Nepal. In 2004 it opened its first center in a small village in the foothills of the Annapurnas. As it was very popular with the local people from the start, it has welcomed many preschool children. In 2005 it received an honorable mention from the Nepali Ministry of Education. In the same year we opened up a workshop where local people craft educational materials that otherwise we would not be able to get hold of in Nepal. Obviously we are on the right track. All we want now is to continue constructing and equipping more early childhood centers, training more nursery class teachers, instructing more locals how to create high quality educational materials. Because these children deserve our care and attention. To be able to do this, however, we need your help! Please donate towards the future of the children of Nepal. Together with the Maya Foundation you can make the difference!
The Maya Foundation is a partner of The Mountain Fund for positive change in Nepal. To support them please make a donation today to Youth and Children's Programs at The Mountain Fund.
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