NATIONAL8 (Spotlight Weekly]

School Skills

One of the oldest schools in eastern Nepal, Dharan’s Sharda Balika Namuna High School recently celebrated its golden jubilee

BY AKSHAY SHARMA in Dharan

Sharda Balika Namuna High School at Dharan, 200 km east of Kathmandu, celebrated its golden jubilee on the last day of the Nepali year 2057. The celebrations were accompanied by, among other things, the inauguration of hostel facilities.

The school has come a long way in these 50 years and provides a testament to the nature of the challenges Nepal has had to confront in seeking to educate the girl child. "We had to travel to India to find teachers because the country didn’t have enough qualified people," Kusum Shrestha and her son Prabhu told SPOTLIGHT.

PM Koirala at Dharan : 'Education girls is the key'

"The general public, especially those fed up with the Ranas’ autocratic policies, who believed in the importance of educating the girl child helped found Shree Sharda Madyamik Vidyala," wrote Akhbar, a weekly newspaper in Dharan.

The golden jubilee celebrations also provided a special opportunity to look into the future. "We should focus on the stressing technological knowledge and skills and build a better and a well-educated society," said Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, who took time out of his busy schedule in the capital to attend the celebrations. "I have an emergency cabinet meeting to attend, but the beauty of Dharan — the junction between the Terai and the hills — was too irresistible."

Referring to the challenges Nepal would face in the days ahead, Koirala said: "I asked the Japanese prime minister what a country like ours should stress in order to achieve our development goals. He suggested that we focus on education and technological things first. The Japanese have managed to challenge the West even after the devastation they suffered during the Second World War."

The prime minister said, "The world is getting smaller and we need to focus on the education of the new generation. Studies have shown that the average girl child in Nepal leaves school when she is in Class 5 or 6, and this is a key area we have to pay attention to."

The school has crossed many hurdles. "Once we had organized a cultural event and the girls were supposed to dance. Many parents said we were doing something wrong. They refused to send their daughters to school," reminisces Kusum. "I still remember how we had to convince parents and guardians to let their daughters come back to school."

Initially, the school operated out of a pati near the Sinha Devi Mandir. "The residents of Dharan are proud to see the way the school has changed," says Prabhu. Many people have helped the school in different ways.

The massive earthquake that struck eastern and central Nepal in 2045 severely damaged the school. "The buildings and the school ground were devastated," Prabhu says. "The calamity affected studies and the plight of students was pitiable," remembers Pratima Panday, the current principal.

Finding qualified people to teach was a major challenge. "I finished my bachelor’s in education and became head mistress of the school at the age of 21," Nirmala Sharma recalls. "Many students used to teach in the school as well."

She adds: "There were four teachers who were college graduates. There was a librarian who had finished his intermediate studies. I remember that we had a Nepali teacher on the faculty. The salary I got was 200 rupees a month. Although that amount sounds ridiculous today, I was substantial then. The librarian was paid 200 rupees while the clerks were provided 156 rupees. The salaries were slightly increased later."

The expenses set aside for extra-circular activities were insufficient, she said. "Girls were only allowed skipping ropes and carom boards. I bought some badminton rackets for them. There used to be a two-storey building and 18 rooms were added later. In 1961, four more rooms were added."

"Classes were held from Grade 1 to 10," remembers Nirmala. The school now runs on the ten-plus-two system. "There were 150 students when I was the principal."

Donor agencies were interested in funding education programmes. "The school management went looking for people willing to help the school and the people of Dharan," recalls Narayan Devi Shrestha, another former principal.

Experts brought in by donor agencies concluded that rebuilding the school on the same spot was not feasible. The management planned to go to new premises.

"The principal met well-wishers and donors and got the new land," says Prabhu. The school got four bighas of land from the government. The new and well-equipped premises at Dharan 16 were built with the help of the Swiss Red Cross.

Pratima’s efforts to organize the golden jubilee celebrations show her energy and determination — qualities that have driven countless people to build the school into what it is today.