“Our work has been just recognized now,” says Pasang Bhutic Chyaba of Kimathanga village, KG teacher. She has been teaching as a pre primary (KG) teacher since the beginning of the school. Pasang says,
“When I first started teaching preschool students, there weren’t any books or educational materials for me to teach. On top of that I had to teach both KG and Grade 1 students together in one class using the Grade 1 books, “says Pasang Bhutic.
Teaching was hard during that time since nothing was well managed in the school. Since the village lies on the China border and very far from the center, development was unable to reach in that area.
The principal of the school says, “Not only ours but the whole Bhotkhola Rural Municipality had this issue. All of them were forced to teach KG and Grade 1 together since the government didn’t had any separate plans for the KG children.”
There were no teacher training plans from the government side and all the teachers of the school were untrained. The KG teachers were paid six thousand rupees per month.
Pasang says, “ Later NELHOS introduced this mother tongue based education program in all the schools of Bhotkhola Municipality. This also included our school. I was very happy and excited. At first I didn’t have to teach KG and Grade 1 in the same classroom. NELHOS also gave us teacher training and some educational materials to teach the KG students and later to grade 1 as well. It reduced almost all of my difficulty.”
The principal of the school says, “I thank the entire NELHOS team for bringing such a good and effective program to our school. Now we have separate classrooms for KG and grade 1 with all the needed educational materials and child friendly classrooms. Not only this, NELHOS also coordinated with the government and increased the KG teacher salary from Rs. 6000 to Rs. 16000. NELHOS has done things which the government hasn’t been able to do in a long time.”
“Now I feel that our hard work has been recognized and evaluated by the government. I want to thank the entire NELHOS team for their support, “says Pasang Bhutic.