Youth Voice

Excerpts from Dilip Kumar Acharya's Experience( This article has published in OLE , Nepal web sites)

  Dilip Kumar Acharya

I had the opportunity to learn about the E-Pustakalaya and other technology innovations used in the educational field during the seven day field to program schools in Baglung district. I was involved in conducting school-survey to assess the effectiveness of laptop-based teaching and learning program. In each school, we randomly selected ten students each from Grades 2 to 5 to and tested them on their understanding of English and math concepts. These students had been using interactive digital content, E-Paath, through the laptops for the past one year.
We administered the survey at Janta higher secondary school at Rangkhani, and we interacted with few teachers and students and discussed various education issues. The school was located on a very remote hill, and had limited infrastructure. In this respect, the school was representative of most rural schools in Nepal. However, I feel that education will change the situation in such schools. (Photo: Prithvi High School: Poor condition of the school in Baglung, but students are getting a chance to learn through ICT-based education system).
Before the field visit, I had come across media reports about policy makers and leaders criticizing INGOs and NGOs for only spending development money on attending meetings at five star hotels instead of benefiting the communities as per the project goals. However, after the field visit my opinion on NGOs changed because I was able to observe OLE Nepal's program very closely. I visited five schools in Baglung where OLE Nepal's program was running, and I found that the schools were working towards improving the quality of teaching and learning through new medium such as technology. The teachers and staff were about thirty to forty five years of age, but they accepted the new medium of teaching and learning and were dedicated and hopeful that they can bring about improvement in education by accepting the new paradigm in teaching and learning.

Children using E-Paati in a school in Baglung

During this visit I also learned that although good infrastructure is critical to student learning, teacher training is very important in contributing to improving the classroom process. The training to teachers conducted by OLE Nepal focused on the fact that students learn best while doing, hence teachers were given theoretical and practical training on how to engage students in the classrooms. During the training, teachers were allowed to practice their newly acquired skills - using technology in education - so that they felt comfortable when technology was first used in their classrooms to teach their students. It was very interesting to see that the training taught teachers how to integrate the textbooks they were already using with various other teaching materials and laptops with digital lessons.
Through the interactions with students and classroom observations, I found that students were not intimidated by teachers. I feel that the laptop-based teaching and learning allows students and teachers to have constructive dialogues which I think leads to a better educational system.
I believe that donor agencies, NGOs, communities, guardians and teachers can play important role to improve the quality of education. I want to thank OLE Nepal for helping me gain firsthand knowledge regarding using technology in education, and for allowing me to take part in the interactions at the schools.
Dilip Kumar Archarya is a M.Ed. student at Kathmandu University, School of Education   ( as cited from www.olenepal.org sites)