So close yet so far

Tasharpu area of Dhading district is so close to the capital city yet so far in terms of development. Every year I travel twice to these area to contribute back to the society for what it has given to me via Himalayan Children Charities Nepal where I work as a General Secretary. During our visit this September, we constructed computer labs for four different secondary school consisting of 20 computer each with the support from The Prem Rawat Foundation, Himalayan Children Charities Nepal, Prem Sagar Nepal and Microsoft Innovation Center.

With an aim to provide computer education to the students of government schools, the government has included computer course mandatorily till lower secondary level. But, this decision may have been carried out without doing any homework. The secondary schools so close to Kathmandu do not have enough computers then what can we expect in schools at distant area. The situation is so pitiful in Bageshwori Secondary School of Makwanpur that 80 students has to use 4 computers for practical classes. The situation was same in other secondary schools of Thakre, Ratmate and Thaha VDC.

On our side we cannot even be happy as we cannot assure that these students will learn to use computer. There are no qualified computer teacher in all these schools. It may be hard to believe but the computer teacher are themselves scared to use the computer. They do not have any idea on basic usage of computer. Now, you can imagine yourself the situation of students. One year, English teacher walks in during the computer period and next year some other faculty member walks in to teach the subject. Even though we had come across these scenarios during our study, we had to donate half-heartedly with a little hope for the improvement.

The computers may sit idle in the laboratory collecting dust with doors and windows locked as there is no one to teach and operate them. There will be no improvements until and unless government scrutinizes the curriculum and make changes. The non – profits and non – governmental organization’s effort have not been able to yield any fruits to make Nepal a computer literate country.