Empowering early childhood educators
In Nepal’s west, a comprehensive early childhood and development initiative is catalyzing positive change in a once-challenging educational landscape, nurturing both educators and children
Dailekh, Nepal: Indra Kumari Thapa’s journey as an early childhood education and development (ECED) teacher had started amidst a number of challenges.
Indra, a teacher at the Bal Bhairav Basic School in Narayan Municipality in Dailekh District in western Nepal, had stepped into the role after her predecessor resigned, only to find herself woefully unprepared. Not only did she lack prior training in ECED – including management of centres and responsive care of children – but the ECED classroom itself was also far from meeting national standards.
“It was cramped and messy,” Indra recalls, explaining how the same room was actually being used for both ECED and grade one – a testament to the low priority afforded to these sessions by both the school and local authorities. “It was not a good environment for children’s learning at all.”
Complicating matters further was the fact that Narayan Municipality, especially the village of Kuikana where the school is located, is home to a significant number of economically-challenged Dalit families, where parents struggle to provide children proper care, including nutrition, hygiene and access to early learning opportunities. Whether owing to lack of awareness, or difficulties in managing time and resources, caregivers did not seem to attach much importance to early childhood development, leading to irregular attendance and inadequate support for children’s learning.
“The children did not come to class regularly, and even when they did, they would often bring along their siblings who were too young for ECED,” Indra says. “It was very difficult to manage all these children of different ages in one space.”
“I was constantly frustrated.”
That tide would eventually turn with the introduction of the Strengthening ECED through Early Learning Development Standards (ELDS) initiative in Narayan Municipality. Implemented in coordination with the municipality as part of a partnership between UNICEF and Seto Gurans National Child Development Services, the project covered all 38 ECED and grade one institutions in the area.
The initiative started with comprehensive orientations for municipal stakeholders, emphasizing the criticality of ECED and fostering an integrated planning process to ensure more child-friendly schools. This included specialized training for ECED and grade one teachers like Indra, focused on equipping them to better understand and address the emotional, physical, social and cognitive needs of young children, and support their healthy development.
The training also delved into best practices in managing ECED centers, including ways to arrange classrooms to maximize stimulation and learning, and participating teachers also received essential learning and recreational materials. This was further reinforced by regular technical assistance provided to them through bi-monthly mobile meetings that brought together all trained teachers in the municipality. Concurrently, regular parenting education sessions were also being conducted for caregivers, to impart to them the knowledge and skills they needed to foster their children’s holistic growth.
For Indra, being part of the project was a whirlwind of self-assessment, reflection and change.
“Not only did I learn the best ways to guide children based on the ECED curriculum and managing the classroom as per minimum standards, the training also helped me to see what I was doing wrong,” she says.
The local government – catalyzed by the programme – was also on hand support these revelations among educators by allocating budgets specifically for ECED enhancement. This resulted in more child-friendly set-ups within ECED centres, and importantly, separate rooms for ECED and grade one students.
Bal Bhairav was among those ECED centres that witnessed significant improvement through additional investment from the ward, and – under Indra’s guidance – soon became something of a model centre in the municipality. Empowered by all that she had learned through the training, Indra took a number of key steps, such as setting up different learning areas for children in the classroom and using ELDS report cards to regularly assess her students. These cards represent tools that teachers can employ to record the status of a given child’s development, and plan ways to provide them remedial support in specific developmental domains.
“The initiative has been a real stepping stone for ECED centres such as ours towards ensuring we meet national standards,” says Laxman Prasad Koirala, head teacher at Bal Bhairav. “The support from UNICEF and Seto Gurans, and the municipality, is very much appreciated.”
The project has also helped to bolster the interest and involvement of parents. “The training helped me to understand the importance of parental engagement in early childhood development,” she says. “So we started to conduct regular meetings with caregivers, to update them about the progress the children were making based on what we could see from the ELDS report cards, but also to gain their ownership and support in creating a positive environment for children’s learning.”
This, according to Indra and Laxman, has encouraged much more regular attendance among the students.
Parvati Nepali, one of the parents, says that the transformation has been wonderful to witness. “The teacher is very dedicated and the ECED centre itself is bigger, better equipped and inviting. The children are happy here.”
