What We Do

Education Development

PHASE Worldwide supports governmental schools in our project villages with teaching materials, help to build better buildings, and support for water supply, toilets and playgrounds. We also supply salaries for extra teachers, where necessary, and help schools to support the poorest students with free books and stationary.

A very important aspect of our education programmes are the projects outside the mainstream schools:  

1. “Catch-up” or “alternative” classes are little satellite schools, where groups of 20 children of all ages are taught a slightly abbreviated curriculum, allowing them to catch up with class 3 of mainstream schools. These classes allow children who have dropped out, or have not been enrolled earlier and are now too old, or for whom the school is too far away, to get a minimal education, and even carry one afterwards if they are able.

2. Nursery Classes, where trained local women look after young village children, giving them a chance to develop a “learning routine” and social skills before starting “real school”, are a well tried successful model in Nepal. – They also free up mothers and older girls from child minding duties, reduce accidents of poorly supervised toddlers, and could even improve child nutrition (if the children are given a snack at the nursery).

3. Adult Literacy Classes: adult literacy rates are very low in our project areas, especially among women, as 10-20 years ago educational opportunities were even rarer than today. But for many women, being able to read for themselves makes a huge difference to their confidence and independence: whether it is reading the instructions on a medicine bottle for their children, the signs on a bus, or the letter form a loved son working abroad – not depending on someone else gives them a huge sense of achievement!

For several years now, primary school attendance has been compulsory for all children between the ages of 5 and 10, and there are many initiatives by the government and non-governmental organisations to increase primary school completion rates. However, for several reasons, there are still many many children in Nepal who get no or only one or two years of education.

The main problems in the village schools are the following:

learning environment: often the schools are no more than a few walls with a tin roof and benches that are in constant danger of falling apart; the classrooms are dark and cold in winter, too hot in the short summer; there often is nowhere for the children to play during breaks, and they often don’t get anything to eat between leaving their homes at 9 am and returning at 4 pm; teachers have no teaching aids to make their lessons more child friendly;

curriculum: the Nepalese curriculum leads up to a national school leaving examination after grade 10, which is of quite a high standard; many children are not able to follow the teaching which is geared to an exam they will never get a chance to take, but there are no provisions to help these children at least attain a minimal standard of literacy and mathematics. In many cases, they drop out of school after 1-2 years, not even able to read Nepalese.

Teachers: government schools are allocated teachers according to the numbers of pupils: 1 teacher per 40 pupils. In smaller villages, primary schools often have no more than 40-50 children enrolled, which means that one teacher is expected to teach all children from 1st to 5th grade… Especially in the more remote areas this is a problem, as they are thinly populated.

Teaching methods: until very recently, primary school teachers needed no other qualification to teach than having passed the school leaving exam themselves. As they were brought up in a “talk and chalk” school system, and have not studied teaching techniques, they are unable to change the style of their lessons to more child friendly format without intensive coaching.

Secondary schooling: Although most villages now have a primary school within an hour’s walk (still a long way for a 5 year old child…), secondary schools are few and far between, and even children who do very well academically are often unable to attend school beyond 5th grade, as the nearest secondary school may be more than 3 hours walk away – an impossible distance to cover on a daily basis, and boarding schools are unaffordable for most villagers