Women should get privilege of leading role in PABSON

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Deepika Rimal Thapa, a versatile personality with multiple talents, is the Founder Principal of Siddhartha Vidyapeeth Secondary School, Gathaghar, Bhaktapur. Havin started her teaching career at the age of 16, she has been successful to prove herself as the emerging leader in PABSON.

Mrs. Thapa ventured into PABSON in 2057 BS and was elected treasurer of PABSON Bhaktapur District Committee in 2058 BS. Just after a year, she started taking responsibility of various positions in the Central Committee PABSON and has been active till the date. She was elected member of the Central Committee for two tenures, secretary for two tenures and vice president for 3 tenures. Her candidacy has been registered for the post of Senior Vice-President in the 15th National Convention. She has shared her plans for strengthening PABSON and making it more vibrant and more responsible in the days to come. Excerpts:

In your analysis, what are the contributions of private schools to education development in Nepal?

In my analysis, private schools have made significant contributions to the field of education sector in Nepal. The attraction towards private schools has been increasing day by day in the public due to the best performance of private school in delivery of quality education and outstanding results. While calculating the data, there are 78% government and 22% private schools in Nepal. But out of a total number of SEE graduates, 80% students are from private schools. Similarly, while estimating the investment cost, the government spends around 50000 rupees per students in grade one annually, but private schools have been providing quality education at around 25000 annually for the same class. Therefore, private schools are delivering quality education in low-cost investment of parents. The difference is that in the government schools, the government pays the fee whereas in private schools, parents have to pay the tuition fees. In other words, each student should be invested but the only difference is who invests in them.

Could you please give an account of the present status of education in Nepal?

The Covid-19 pandemic hit hard to the entire education sector. Due to lack of physical ways of teaching and learning system the quality of education has degraded. A virtual way of teaching and learning activity is not an effective alternative to physical way of learning. In the context of Nepal, all the parents are not able to provide sufficient equipment to their children for virtual classes. Similarly, most parents are not well-trained with modern technology, which resulted in misguidance to students.  Moreover, the network and electricity also are not reliable in Nepal. So, we have begun running all our academic programs physically by adopting health protocols and virtual methods will be adopted only for temporary purposes.

What are the challenges of PABSON at present?

The PABSON Central Committee was being operated in a rented building from its establishment date; however, we purchased a land for this purpose during the tenure of the then PABSON President Rajesh Khadka. We just purchased the building after selling the land, collected some funds from member schools and borrowed a loan from a bank. Now, our first challenge is to pay off the loan within the stipulated time. The second challenge is to upgrade the quality of education and encourage teaching and non-teaching faculty to show their optimum efforts to fulfill the gaps which were created by the pandemic.

What strengths of PABSON have you witnessed?

There are as many as 6800 private schools in Nepal. Similarly, more than 222000 teaching and non-teaching staff are working and about two million students are studying in those private institutions. So, we are proud to say that they are our strengths. PABSON creates pressure on the discriminatory and suppressive policy of the government and has been able to boost the morale of all the private schools, teachers and students. In other words, PABSON is committed to rekindling the hope of students, parents, teachers and private investors.

It is heard that there is strong dissatisfaction of member schools with the PABSON for failing to play a convincing role for students, parents and private school investors. What’s your say on this predicament?

In fact, PABSON has not got an appropriate environment for academic planning and its execution. We always have to engage in solving problems created by the government. The government always creates uncertainty and chaos for private schools. In addition, a durable education policy has not yet been passed which has created confusion for the existence of all private schools of Nepal.

You have announced your candidacy for the post of Senior Vice President in the 15th National Convention? What sorts of plan have you formulated to implement if you get a victory?

Truly speaking, there is less participation of women in the executive post. So, my candidacy is for the senior Vice-president. Let’s see how the consensus is made among the member schools. If I am elected, I will strengthen women’s participation in national and international level. I will encourage women principals to demonstrate their convincing performance and help them develop their leadership capacity. Moreover, I will try my best to change the perspectives of the public and the government towards women and create an amicable environment to work hand in hand with male counterparts. I will launch a campaign to prove that women can also lead an organization. In addition, I will work in team to develop an education app by consulting the CDC to create a curriculum-based teaching app.

At the end, what message would you like to convey to the PABSONists attending the 15th National Convention?

We have set an example from the 14th National Convention that a person from the outside valley can also hold leadership. So, I convey the message to the PABSINISTS of outside valley to get ready for taking up the leadership role. Similarly, I would like to disseminate the message to work together with the member schools and the PABSON for privileges of member schools, students, parents and teachers.

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