The Girls Education Project in Rural Nepal

The report covers the following activities- merging of the two girls’ education projects, the girl’s club, the extra tuition classes, the study support materials and the financial. 

‘The Girls’ Higher Education Project’ has been merged with ‘The Girls’ Education Project’ because the Nepalese government has changed the education policy and the 10+2 (intermediate) courses are under the compulsory higher secondary education scheme. Now, the 10+2 courses will be taught in secondary school as well as in the collages. It will be easier for us to manage the project. Hopefully, the course fees will be cheaper for the 10+2 students in the coming days.

We are delighted to announce that a Girl’s Club in Bhagawatpur has been established for the empowerment of girls in the communities. The club has five committee members including of the head of the jurisdiction of the municipality, part-time staff and twenty-five members. The committee will monitor the club activities and advice accordingly. The main objectives of the club are to raise awareness about the educational rights of children in the communities, advocate them so that they will have an enabling environment to become what they want to be and, create an opportunity to learn life-long skills. The staff and members will have a regular monthly meeting as well as a help desk to deal with urgencies.

We have hired three teachers (Maths, Nepali and English) to provide additional classes to the girls so that they can obtain a better result in the final exam. All the girls in the scheme are from poor and Dalit families, and they are not supervised at home. Consequently, they don’t get a good result in the final exams and, without it they can’t study further. We are hopeful that the girls will benefit from the class significantly. 

Seventy-seven per cent of the girls in the scheme have a satisfactory school attendance, and twenty per cent have an average in the quarter. Similarly, four hundred and thirty-seven notebooks, two hundred and eighty-five pens and six bicycles have provided to the girls in the quarter.

Four staff has been working to manage the projects, and so far £4,825 pounds have been expended on both projects. The spending includes staff salary, tuition fees, study support materials, bicycles and others.

The annual Curry and Beer event- every year we organise a curry and beer event to raise funds to support the project. But this year, we have decided to do it differently- we are requesting our supporters to cook curry at their own home, invite friends and collect donations to support the project. We are here to help you in the planning of the event, so if you think that you can do it, then please contact me by email- krit.sharma@nvf.org.uk

Best wishes

Krit Sharma

Nepal Village Foundation

The following project activities were carried out during the quarter;

Monitoring of the girls in the scheme to improve the school attendance- Thirty-five girls in the scheme have achieved a 100% school attendance comparing to only six or seven in the previous months or years. Similarly, 52 girls have a school attendance of 80% and only six girls have below 50%. Radha and Nirmala, the two interns, have been working hard to achieve the result.

None of the girls is allowed to be absent from their school without permission from the interns. Despite that many girls are absent for various reasons. Hence, Radha and Nirmala visit all the schools randomly on a regular basis, and if they find any of the girls is absent, then they visit their home. We believe the monitoring system is working better than ever since before.

Study support package- we have provided plenty of notebooks, pens, school-bag and a bicycle to the girls in the first quarter, so only a few girls needed some extra in this quarter. Mainly the seven girls in higher secondary schooling needed a bicycle, textbooks and the other stuff.  

Improving the quality of education- we are working with the head of local municipality to explore the possibility to partner the local schools and municipality. It is to improve the quality of education in local schools by improving the teaching and learning methods.

The management of the local schools, teachers, pupils and their parents are not taking the education seriously due to many difficulties and differences. If the project is feasible and the municipality provides sufficient funding, then we will be working to eliminate the difficulties and differences and create a better environment for teaching and learning. The local community schools are mainly used by girls, so most of the girls in the community will benefit from the project.

An opportunity to study higher secondary schooling- we have begun to sponsor girls from poor and Dalit families to study higher secondary schooling from this year. Seven girls have been selected for the scheme, and they are attending their college regularly from the last month. We have partnered with two local colleges, and the colleges are offering a 36% discount on the tuition fees to all our girls. A project has been created on GlobalGiving for the sponsorship.

To sponsor a girl in higher secondary schooling costs £550 per year (£50/month). Similarly, to sponsor a girl in secondary school costs £65 (£6/month) and in primary schooling costs £50 (£5/month).

Please sponsor a girl today and give the girls in rural Nepal an opportunity to receive an education.

Links:

• The Girls Higher Secondary Project