Are Schools really worth their value?

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Education is often considered as a tool to enhance confidence, creativity, and capacity to take one's own decisions by providing wisdom. These qualities are expected to be received from an institution called school that believes in enhancing one's self-confidence by socializing them to people from various backgrounds and various status. Although the purpose of sending students to schools is to develop individual capabilities and skills, but in the present context and in the real scenario, the question arises: is it really worth what we perceive it to be? It is true enough that we have highly qualified people in the field of education whose main purpose is to impart knowledge to their subordinates. But then, still, a lot of problems are seen in the field of education that has resulted in failure to meet the real purpose i.e. to create capable people for the real world.

Rigidity in Curriculum, Assignments, and Exams

Rigidity in the curriculum has limited the scope of the purpose of education. This is mainly due to limited ideas to be explored at a certain time that is mostly focused on exams. It is interesting that the school prepares students first and then take an exam, while on the other hand, life takes an exam and then teaches you the lessons. These exams are expected to judge the knowledge disseminated in the year to the students within a written test to be completed in a couple of hours. These sorts of testing systems eventually reduce the inquisitiveness and creativity of the students as it focuses on unproductive exam-focused assignments which burdens them throughout the academic session. Further, in order to ensure better scores of students, they are forced to stay in school for hours longer than they are supposed to which deteriorates the mental health of students and kills their creativity, talent, and confidence to some extent, in simple terms, killing the identity of the students. 

Punishments

School is torturous to students. In addition to exams that do not depend upon the critical and creative analysis of an issue and burden of assignments both difficult to manage, punishments for not being able to meet the expectations of elders or for any trivial reasons tops all the burdens. From not wearing a clean uniform to forgetting a notebook at home, punishments in school that may be in many forms: Emotional Violence, Negative reinforcements, and physical abuse. This has not only resulted in the feeling of hatred towards teachers but has also made the learning journey much less exciting as it is supposed to be. In worst scenarios, due to extreme humiliation and abuse by teachers, students lose their confidence, loss of hope and eventually can result in loss of confidence, worsened relationship, psychological consequences ultimately leading to depression and suicide.

Way Forward!

Education should not fear students from the process, instead, it should be exciting and create impacts in the society. In this 21st century, the era of innovation, it is essential to design education in such a way that addresses the needs of this era. The education, instead of being filled with unnecessary theoretical aspects and rigid curriculum, should contain skills that are applicable in real life that is as per the interest of students.  Mugging up concepts is not essential rather applying them for real-life problem solving through creativity, building critical skills and design fundamentals is essential. Thus, to make schools worth their values, introduction to 21st-century skills and training to their effective implementation are the needs of the present scenario. This will not only make school applicable in real life but will also make the teaching-learning process more exciting. 

Written by: Pransu Khakurel (Canopy Nepal)

Edited by: Sabanam Thapa (Canopy Nepal)

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. 

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.