Guest Post: The Story of Govinda Panthy
Govinda with his students
I was brought up in a poor rural farmer’s family but my parents never stopped me going to school. I started going to school when i was 8 and I always came first in all the classes till Grade 10. Having passed Grade 10 we had to leave our village for higher studies. So I moved to Kathmandu valley (capital) with my brother. I had to find a job for living myself since my parents were not at the level of supporting me financially. But i wanted to continue my further studies. I got an opportunity to teach in an English medium private school near Kathmandu; that was in Bhaktapur town. I joined for I.A (Intermediate in Arts) in an evening campus and continued teaching at the school as a primary math teacher. Having finished I.A., I studied B.Ed. to become a teacher. I couldn’t attend my classes in the college as I had to do my teaching job at school for my two ends meet.
When i was in the final year one of my friends from Bageshwori (village near Bhaktapur town) requested me to start an English medium school in his village. I surveyed and decide to help villagers as i knew the painful situation of village children. People who were really illiterate and poor were willing to help me for starting an English medium school but those who could send their children to the town were not so much positive. I visited and sat on discussion with the village people three times and reached on decision to start an English medium school as the children of the village had to walk about an hour to reach English medium school in the town. The paths would be muddy in the rainy season and dusty in the winter and summer. There was not a bus service. We do not have regular bus service yet due to the poor and narrow roads. For those reasons, I started Shantideep Adarsh Vidhyasadan (SAV School) with 13 children of the village in 1998.
As i was brought up in the remote rural area of Nepal, I’ve experienced the situation of a rural student. Regarding financial problems I used to recycle papers myself. (eg; I used to write in ink on sheets of paper. I would collect them and when my new sheet of paper finished, I would dip them in soap water and dry them in the sun and would reuse them.) I used to make and sell materials from bamboo for buying pen, books and paper and pay exam fees. We never had lunch at school. Though I was the school topper at study, I was once kicked out from the exam hall since my parents couldn’t pay nominal exam. fee on time, etc. These bitter events of my childhood experience and the educational status and the willingness to educate their children/grandchildren English language pushed me to decide to start an English medium school. I hired one of my college friends to teach these innocent 13 students in my absence and I also started working in a nearby public school as part time English teacher. Next year the number of students increased. More villagers sent their children to school as they knew our hard working. Gradually the number of students increased and we went on upgrading the school every year and for this year we have 127 students and 7 teachers. We have 10 classrooms from Nursery to grade 6.
I’m not only a founder of SAV School, but also Chairperson of School Management Committee (SMC), teacher, assistance or director. Running school in a rural area is not a joke, it’s really challenging job. As a teacher when I go to classroom I find teaching a fun and challenging both at a time. Fun at that sense, every student is curious to learn English, they often seek new thing from their teacher and try their best to follow their teacher. They are so obedient. They are so curious and hardworking. They are so creative and active sometimes more than we teachers are. And challenging in those sense they have limited resources. They even can’t find enough learning materials like notepads, pens, crayons, or other reading materials. They even do not have comfortable classrooms and furniture. They do not have even hygienic food. Some of the children finish the school hours (9 am to 4:30 pm) depending on water. (Parents who are able send some food for school time but some do not; and school do not have resource to feed them.)
This is the age of science and technology. Many schools even in our country have started using technology in the classroom teaching. But our school is located in such a place where we do not have access of internet. We do not have computers whereas we’ve been struggling for pen and paper for our students. Although computers and internet at this time have become a must and our priorities are different, I‘ve been focussing my concentration to technology during the year 2010. As I came to know the value of technology in classroom, I started searching like-minded people to support my job. I’m lucky I’ve inspiration from some of the US teachers and teachers from Germany , Greece, Autralia, Belgium, the Netherlands, etc. One of my US teacher friends and australian friend have helped me buy a digital camera so that her students and ours start cultural sharing project.
There are some other teachers and students who are trying to find way out to facilitate our students to have better classroom and teaching techniques and materials. If we had computers and internet at school we could open the door for the world to draw their attention of the world towards our work and present situation. I’ve been using internet going to a cyber cafe which is an hour walk from where I live. Through the internet, I’ve been trying to establish a link with more and more international friends who interest in child education. I’ve gained lots of ideas from them but I’ve been facing difficulties make understand them our real life situation. However, I feel proud to have friends (teachers/non teachers) who have compassion towards my job. I’ve been recruiting teaching international volunteers (privately) who also loved to help with little school supplies, but that has not been enough.
There can be seen so many online teaching materials would be so nice learn and apply in the classroom teaching. For that reason too, computer and internet has become a must for school and modern teachers. We try to utilize the local teaching materials as far as possible but that do not cope with modern education techniques and methodologies. Our teaching still based on ‘Chalk and Talk. Our teachers should be trained and equipped with modern technology and facilities if we really want to produce internationally competent human resource for the future.
Govinda Prasad Panthy
English Teacher & Founder chairperson (SMC)/Director
SAV School
Bageshwori-7, Bhaktapur, Bagmati, Nepal (00977)
Contact No.: +977 9841 206385
gopisu@gmail.com
Skype -> govinda.prasad.panthy1