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Education
Introduction
School system and literacy
Schools are a rather new invention in the
Sherpa area. First modern schools have been introduced in the 1960s on the
intention of Edmund Hillary, the special beneficiary of the Sherpas. Besides, Tibetan Buddhist education has been
available in the monasteries and rare nunneries after the first monastery
(Tengboche in Khumbu) was founded in 1916.
The government school system in the
Sherpa area is rather backward. In recent decades, small schools have
been established in a number of villages, but they are in a miserable
condition: leaking or partly missing roofs; missing doors and windows
or windows without panes; clay soil floors; missing or insufficient
tables, chairs and benches; no drinking water and sanitary facilities;
no electricity; no blackboards; insufficient teaching materials;
curricula totally strange to Sherpa culture; insufficiently educated
and badly paid teachers who usually don't speak the mother tongue of
the children; frequent exchange of teachers (often every two years); no
accomodations for teachers; poor school participation, especially of
girls. (as an example see Yawa school)
Besides these primary schools
(classes 1-6), there are only a few seconday schools (classes 7-10) in some
central villages. The relatively new higher secondary branches (classes 11-12)
are totally unknown in the Sherpa area.
The poor and often
irregular school attendance has different reasons: lack of understanding
by the parents who, themselves, did not have the chance to go to school;
reservations against the teachers in general ("they are lazy",
"they do nothing") and especially to those coming from far away
villages and belonging to other population groups; need of the children's
work force at home and in the fields; regulations of lesson and holiday
periods unfit for the rural conditions in the Sherpa area; poor conditions
of the school building and resulting inefficiency of the classes; missing
perspectives after finishing school (hardly any chance to join secondary
schools; no chances in the administration or other government services
dominated by Hindu values).
As it is typical for rural
Nepal, Sherpa girls, too, are rarely sent to school. This is partly caused
by the generally low social status of Nepali women that has been legally
sanctioned by laws based on Hindu values making women second class citizens
and depriving them of economic, property and inheritance rights.
Promotion of Sherpa
language and culture
The textbooks and curricula
provided by the government are exclusively based on the interpretation of
history and society by the high caste Hindu elite at the state centre;
ethnic languages and cultures are totally excluded. Since the Nepali state
has not implemented its own commitment to preserve the ethnic languages
and cultures, as it is mentioned in the 1990 constitution, the ethnic
groups have gradually started their own initiatives.
Sherpa Culture Centre, Salleri, construction
phase
This means in the case of
the Sherpa area that, besides the government curricula, it will be
necessary to preserve and disseminate the knowledge of Sherpa culture
among the Sherpa youth, so that future generations of Sherpas can be proud
of their cultural values and their history. To achieve this, it will be
necessary to involve more Sherpas as teachers in the schools of the Sherpa
area.
Lhakpa with former headmaster Dorji Sherpa
(right),
who has been teacher in Okhaldhunga and Nauje for 40 years,
and other members of the construction team
As an accompanying measure,
the Nepali state must be urged to place all teachers working in the Sherpa
area under the obligation to learn something about the Sherpa language and
culture. This can only be implemented if Nepal's multiethnicity and its
different aspects become an integral part of the curricula of the
country's education system.
Organizers of the Sherpa Culture Centre,
Salleri
To teach the Sherpa children
their own history, language, religion and culture, it will be necessary to
introduce respective textbooks.
Press articles
Phoebe’s libraries, by Pranaya SJB Rana (nt 17/08/2007)
Solu
kids prefer secular to monastic education, by Bikash Sangraula (kp
02/06/2006)
Sherpa
students split over convention issue (ht 29/03/2005)
Sherpa
Class Benefits (New Zealand Herald, 14/06/2003)
Another
Himalayan Challenge, by Tim Watkin (New Zealand Herald, 26/05/2003)
Sherpa dream fades before lure of lucre,
by Renu Kshetr (Himalayan Times, 29/09/2002)
Welfare fund for Sherpa students
(Kathmandu Post, 13/09/2002)
Japan gives Rs 2.53 M for rural projects
(Rising Nepal, 13/10/2001). See also Japanese assistance for school hostel construction
(People's Review, 18/10/2001)
Hillary
feted (Kathmandu Post, 09/04/2000)
Background
Village
School Yawa
Sherpa
Model School
Phugmoche
School
(information in German and English)
Junbesi
Academy (Sorry, this project has been halted for indefinite time)
Babu
Chiri School Fund, by Shiva Charity
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