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VOL. 27, NO. 27, March 14, 2008 (Chaitra 01 2064 B.S.)
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GLOBAL SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP
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Sharing Experiences
Under the global Partnership Program, Nepalese teachers will get international exposure by visiting schools in the United Kingdom
By A CORRESPONDENT
For Pushpa Singh, principle of Kanti Ishori Shishu Vidyalya, it was a great opportunity to learn new teaching skills and managing academic environment. Although she has been in the profession of teaching for quite a long time, the experiences she learned during her stay in the United Kingdom are valuable.
“This program is very important as I believe the partnership program will help and give the children of both the partner schools a chance to develop friendship and joy of sharing each other’s culture and life,” said Singh.
Not only the Principle Singh, many other Nepalese teachers who recently visited the United Kingdom under the global partnership program enjoyed similar experiences and exciting moments. The children of Nepalese schools - who already have partners in the United Kingdom – have made friends through writing letter.
Students of both the countries share their culture, religions and ways of life. “This is a good way to give the students and teachers exposure to international education system,” said Shanker Prasad Pandey, Secretary at the Ministry of Sports and Education.
From new teaching skills to managing academic environment, school teachers from Nepal got opportunity to learn many things from schools of the United Kingdom.
“Our experiences have shown that this is a good way to share things about both the countries,” said country director of British Council Nepal. “We will encourage Nepalese schools from remote parts of Nepal to join this program.”
Seven school teachers from Nepal will visit partner schools in the United Kingdom this year to learn and share the teaching methods. During their visit, they will hold face to face meetings with the UK teachers and develop plans for joint curricular activities for their schools on global themes.
This visit is a part of a grant awarded by DFID Global School Partnerships (DGSP) which is delivered by a consortium of the British Council, Cambridge Education Foundation, UKOWLA and VSO. The program is funded by UK’s Department for International Development’s (DFID).
The DFID Global School Partnership Program provides opportunities to teachers to explore an exciting and innovative ways to motivate learning and is an effort to make students participate as global citizens. Shuvatra School, St. Xavier’s School and Neptune Boarding School were the cluster schools from Nepal to receive this global curriculum grant in 2004 with their partner schools in UK viz., Hendon School, Whitefield school and King Alfred School.
DFID Global Partnership Programs aims to raise young people’s awareness on global development issues and equip them with the skills and knowledge to become active global citizens. It is a dynamic way for schools in Nepal to be exposed to global dimension as it provides opportunities for professional development, grants and advices to enable the development of joint curricular projects with their partners.
Shree Garma Secondary School of Solukhumbu in Nepal is the one of the schools recently involved in the partnership which has received a reciprocal visit grant. Similarly, Ms. Pushpa Singh, Principle of Kanti Ishwori Shishu Vidyalaya, Ms. Kamala Pageni from Balodaya English Boarding School, Pokhara visited their partner schools at St. Giles , Wrexham Wales and Sir Christopher Hattan School in the UK in 2007.
After the visit Ms. Pushpa Singh says “, I believe the partnership program will help and give the children of both the partner school a chance to develop friendship and joy of sharing each other’s culture, lifestyle, religion as well as creating a world of global citizens so as to understand how the world works economically, politically, socially, culturally, technologically and environmentally.”
The visit takes place for a minimum of five days and the teachers can observe and conduct classes in their partner school. After competing the reciprocal visits, teachers from both sides sign a partnership agreement and get involved in joint curriculum activities as agreed.
