Heartbreak and Triumph.

Rajan Maharjan is the Principal at Jana Uddhar Secondary School, Nepal.

Most of the public schools in Nepal are in the need of transformation. Specifically, in terms of quality of teaching there has been a huge learning gap in the students. Fair enough parents choose private schools in any cost they could pay to make sure their kids learn in better schools. So, many public schools in the country itself have been merged with one another because of having less number of students. Most probably there are some more on the process.

It has been a big challenge for most public schools mainly in the cities to increase the student’s number. Unlikely, Jana Uddhar Secondary School in kathmandu has significantly made a progress in students’ enrolment. It is a public school managed by Collaborative Schools Network under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model since April 2015. In the last 8 years of this school’s record the enrolment had been falling down massively. Before two years there were only 110 students but this year the school has
been able to double the number to reach 215 total numbers of students.

The school has aimed to be the first choice school of local parents. More comprehensively it has adopted rational steps being based on the idea of “WE PUT STUDENTS FIRST”. Presumably, there had not been essential measures to be accountable towards declining the performances of the school. The primary focus now is to improve its quality of teaching through “Inside Out”, where teachers support is persistently being given with basic initiative of implementing the lessons having necessary students activities, differentiation and assessment. In order to check the understanding of each student assessment is not just limited in three terminal exams based but done in every lesson. So, teacher are intensively coached and guided for the preparation of their further lessons.

From academic session 2017 school has prioritized the need to improve primary sections intensively. Basically to improve English, Math and Science, grade teachers are provided continuous support on preparing lesson plans every day. Their classes are regularly observed and given feedbacks. Students are learning with more activities being carried out beyond just text book based. Where such schools are often regarded as chaotically managed, Jana Uddhar sets some firm school culture on tracking performance records of each student and teacher, on punctuality, and having more number of teaching days regardless of any kind of disturbances. There is teacher’s presence in every lesson, staff meeting is held every month and so as SMC meeting does. Class teachers are responsible to
get updated with the attendance of their kids and thus do phone calls and home visits in case anyone is absent without any notice.

School remains open even during any educational strikes considering more teaching days. All the primary kids are provided free lunch and attractive uniforms. Lessons are well run with different classroom management ideas. Parents are assured that their kids are taken proper care. School is concerned on delivering positive message to the community. Teachers have built high expectation towards students. Parents participation has improved appreciably in any meeting and their suggestions are well received to bring
the necessary changes.

The school has been adopting child friendly classrooms with the necessary materials present there. Students enjoy studying on the comfortable benches in wide classrooms. Children are learning to use computers and read books in library. Formation of child club is another initiative taken to boost student leadership. Depending upon the arena of students’ interests, Child Club runs different students led programs and innovations under the club hub initiative.