Ms. Anita Ghalan Ghyaba is one of the seven active teachers of Shree Banaspati Basic School. Nearly 140 children from ECD to grade 5 are enrolled in this school, and it has been the first learning place for these children from the local community of Khorbhyanjyang, Konjyosome Rural Municipality-1, Lalitpur.

With a passion to work with children, four years earlier Ms. Anita joined the school family as a teacher. Since then, she has been teaching math and science for the children from ECD to Grade five. However, she had not received any formal training on teaching methodology from any source. Based on the observation of teachings made by other teachers, she has been learning how to teach in the classroom. Through discussion with other teachers, she has been designing her teaching lesson plan and focuses on the content of the textbook. The curriculum set by the government is what she follows to teach in the class.

Because of her attitude and dedication in teaching children in school, she has been liked by children, school management and parents. Hence, the school management selected her to participate in the ECD Facilitation Training organized by NEW Initiative through the financial support of Moving Mountains e.V.. Her participation in the “ECD Facilitation Training” in ECEC was her first-ever formal & fruitful training received so far. She shared her experience after training as follows:

“My participation in the training program enlightened me. I have never thought that teaching can be very interesting and fun. I have been teaching in this ECD for 4 years and now after my participation in the training program, I realized that the teaching method I used was inefficient. The teaching method that I should adopt was completely different from what I have been doing. The children come to school daily. I give them classwork in which I write alphabetic letters in the board and the children are made to copy from whatever I have written. The age of children that join in the ECD is from 3- 6 years. This is the age of freedom where the children are very raw. But, some uneducated parents in our community force us to teach read and write to their children. Despite the capacity and knowledge of their children, they want to see those 3-5 yrs toddlers capable of reading and writing the alphabet.

But, after the training, I came to know that we must involve the children in different activities. One way interaction (the traditional teaching method of writing in blackboard and copying them in a notebook) with the children is not effective at all. Now, I start my morning class with funny, interesting and catchy songs which describes the colour, size and the use of any items (fruits, vegetables, things). I have started reading some inspiring stories to the children so that they can differentiate between good and bad. The storybooks help me a lot to deliver content in front of children. I have started making educational materials as well from what I have learned from the training.

The training was so fruitful that I shared all my experience with other teachers and requested them to follow the heart of students. Not to force them to learn but make them learn with fun.”

We believe that the implementation of activities of this project will create a positive impact on the lives of the children in the two ECD’s where the project is being implemented. We would like to request you to subscribe and follow our blog post to receive more updates about our activities. We would like to acknowledge our donor Moving Mountains e.V. for supporting us to implement this project in the ECD of rural areas of Nepal. We look forward to receiving your comments and feedback on our program and activities.

With Many Thanks from NEW Initiative Team.