In Search of Fantastic Teen

Application for Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero 2019 is open till July 31st, 2019 for all the passionate teenagers, who are working to bring a positive change in society.

Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero (GTH) is an award night dedicated to the passionate and innovative teenagers to recognize their initiation, creativity, activities, and enthusiasm that they have been doing to create a positive impact on society besides academics. It is a fully-funded program exclusively for Nepali Teenagers to develop themselves through networking, collaboration, and pooling of opportunities. 

This program aims to bring passionate teenagers together to share their initiation and creativity throughout the nation and motivate them to lead their initiation to act for a positive change.

With the believe that teenagers play a significant role in national development, Glocal Teen Hero is an example to the people and society on how teenagers can create an impact in small age. We are successfully running in the fifth year. Where, In this fourth year we have already recognized four fantastic teenagers from Nepal.

• Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero of 2015: Miss. Bipana Sharma (Child rights activist from Sunwal, Nawalparasi.)
• Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero of 2016: Mr. Shantosh Lamichhane (Young scientist from Lalitpur)
• Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero of 2017: Mr. Sachin Dangi (Social Activist from Dang)
• Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero of 2018: Miss. Prashansha KC (Social activist and filmmaker from Rukum)

Every year Glocal Teen Hero event will be held on September 1st at Soaltee Crown Plaza Hotel, where fantastic teenagers are recognized as an early change maker of Nation.

To apply in Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero, the eligibility criteria are:

1. Should be a Nepali Citizen.
2. Must be age from 13 – 19 years old.
3. Must have created a social impact through their works.

By applying in Glocal Teen Hero, teenagers get a lifetime opportunity to start their beautiful journey to be future leaders. It is a place where one can learn, train and explore. This platform provides them ample opportunities to develop and grow themselves. It will also motivate them to dream big and become role models for other fellows teenagers.

Interested teenagers who are working to create a ripple effect in society besides academics can apply for Wai Wai Glocal Teen Hero, 2019.

For more details and application, can visit https://gitc.glocalteenhero.com/


View Your Choice is a Key Supporter and Outreach Partner for Glocal Teen Hero and Glocal International Teen Conference.

Importance of grades

Importance of grades

Grades are an important part of every student's life in our current society. Grades were created as a mechanism to test how students are doing across different mediums (different course materials, assignments, quizzes, etc.) but lately, it seems like grades are used as a medium to judge a student’s intelligence. Students with a high GPA are deemed ‘smart’ and likely to succeed, whereas students with low GPA are deemed a failure. The purpose of grades isn’t to classify students into ‘smart’ and ‘not smart’, but to give an aggregate result of their performance instead.

The mentality that grades are determining factor of everything is actively harming children and deteriorating their mental health. Many students, especially in Nepal have committed suicide because of the pressure to improve their grades. Children have been led to believe that their health, happiness and even their state of mind are all less important than grades. Depression is rampant amongst teenagers these days for this very reason. This is a very harmful mentality to have and can have long term consequences for students.

But the question still stands; are grades really that important? What would a world without grades look like? The truth is grades do matter. As explained above, grades were created as a method to judge how a student is doing academically in all subjects. Without grades, it would be difficult to analyze how a student is performing. Grades will also help students track their own progress and set goals that they can compare.

That being said, the majority of students may not have good grades but excel at something else. Some students may not be passionate about schoolwork but score good grades due to excessive pressure from their parents.  It is difficult to judge how ‘talented’ a student is based on grades alone as different students have different strong points. Thus the practice of judging a student’s ‘intelligence’ based on grades is not only actively harmful, but it is also inherently flawed as that is not the purpose of grades at all. That would be like judging an elephant, fish and a chimpanzee on their ability to climb a tree. A student with low grades has as much value as a student with high grades. Lumping all students together decreases their self-esteem as they start comparing themselves with one another, when in actuality they all are capable of bringing something to the table. In fact, people who prioritize grades over everything else are actually missing the point of education.

Education is not about who scores the highest; it is about who can reap the most benefit from school. Children aren't sent to schools so that they can get all As and top their class; they are sent to school so that they can learn, and use what they’ve learned in their lives and become successful. An individual who manages to do that can be considered educated instead of an individual with multiple A+s in their resume, but unable to do anything with it. 

Written by: Saisha Dixit 

Edited by: Sabanam Thapa

Canopy Nepal is a team of visionary youths working in the field of education, skill and leadership development, diversity and inclusion. We seek to improve the quality and efficiency of education by focusing on the learners and reshaping the way they learn.

Towards the development of Technology-based Educational Patterns

From left: Shyam Shrestha (Chairperson of Secondary level Thematic Committee in High Level Education Commission), Prof. Dr. Bhoj Raj Aryal (Professor at Central Department of Management), Baudha Raj Niraula (Head of Education Department from Shankharapur Municipality), Jitram Lama (President of NGO Federation of Nepal)

A Conference on Digital Math Education was organized by 'Kids of Kathmandu' and 'e-Education' with the support of JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) on 13th and 14th of June, 2019. This two-day event comprised of a panel discussion and socialization on the first day, and for the second day, a participative workshop was conducted.

The event raised crucial concerns regarding the education environment and changes in education patterns in response to technological environment. The government realizes the importance of technological advancements in the present world and its importance, and has been developing various schemes and models to integrate the use of technology in classroom lectures; for example, by providing various basic and proficient ICT courses. Introducing change in the educational environment needs time and acceptance, so it is not the reluctance of the government but the persistence of teachers on using the same old techniques. There is a lack of awareness about the importance and uses of ICT in education and everyday job which should be resolved, and the sooner it is done, the better.

But availability still remains a big question in most rural places; it is predominantly non-existent where absence of electricity poses as a barrier to ICT access. There are cases where misuse (and even absence of any use) has been witnessed. For these cases where abundant availability has failed to deliver desired results, changes shall be brought in the scheme, and the teachers who come with no preparation and lack any training on integrating ICT facility in lectures and with little to no motivation, need to create a creative engaging technique and give prior importance to student engagement. Some arguments suggest that the lack of rural school teachers is what drives the deterioration of quality education. Others object that it is not the lack of teachers but a lack of management. A solution for this issue demands availability of qualified teachers, removal of inexperienced teachers and ICT training to motivated teachers.

There are 3 fundamental factors that drives an effective incorporation of ICT in schools: modern technology, access to technology and learning attitude in teachers. Quite often professionals are well adjusted about the results, but minimum urgency is given to understanding the causes behind them. In many instances there has been questions concerning the gap between public and private schools. One major reason creating this gap is when the teachers pay less attention to the psychology of students and how their teaching methodology affects the attention span of their students.

The second day engaged all the participants in a participatory workshop schedule where the groups were assigned with respective topics and worked out possible solutions. The topic during the day discussed about utilizing, implementing and maximizing the use of video lectures in class, issues and its solutions to expand the reach of video lectures where most needed, and how to use ICT facility. The event successfully delivered rigorous insights from our panelists and all the participants during the workshop, which will further assist in improving the methodology of the entire process.

Kids of Kathmandu is a non-profit organization working for the betterment of marginalized and disadvantaged group of children.