Building more and better schools in Nepal

Activity plan for the Bardiya School cool schools June 08 - January 09

Sonam Wangchuk

30. June 2008

Tentative Activity Plan for the green school building in Bardiya June – January

 

June 12^th and 13^th, work shops were held by Department of Education, the former had a technical focus while the latter was discussing the issue of school building on a policy level. Mr. Satprem from Auroville in South India and Sonam Wangchuk presented the CSEB blocks capacity in terms of cost effectiveness, child friendliness and climate responsiveness. Participants: Technicians and engineers from the department and other parties in charge of school building in Nepal, Representatives from NSET Nepal, donor agencies and media also participated. See Mr. Satprem’s summary of the meeting.

Progress in building up to end of June: CSEB blocks made and go through curing

We have nearly finished the production of the blocks for the Type 2 CSEB building. In the next two months of monsoon the CSEB blocks would get a through curing period. This suits us as people don’t come to work in this agricultural rainy season. Meanwhile we have also been working on resolving some water related teething problems in the type1 building. 

July: Make ferrocement channels

We hope to be casting the ferrocement (inch thick chicken-mesh wire reinforced elliptical cement) channels for the roof. These will also go through curing for several weeks of monsoon. 

August – count down to construction

Get mason-worker teams and other small details ready for the bog building splash in September. 

Mid September – Timed construction to finish the Type 2 school in a record time of 20 days

We are keeping for ourselves an ambitious goal of finishing the 100 m² two room school building in 20 working days time starting roughly 15th September. This is because firstly we think that this is possible and secondly that such speed would be needed if this technique is to be adopted as one of the models for Nepal’s 50,000 classroom programme.  

November 10 and 11 (Kartik 25 and 26): Inauguration of the building and a seminar on educational issues of the Terai

Then in November we would like to invite you to Bardiya to see the building on its inauguration as also to see other government school reform programmes of Education for Freedom Project carried out by BASE Bardiya with support from MS Nepal and Operation Day Work Denmark. We also plan to organise a national level seminar here to discuss the educational issues of Terai Nepal, particularly the issue of high student teacher ratio (STR) and child friendly classrooms. The three day programme would be based amidst the beauty and awe of the Bardiya National Park.

November

Build the type 3 school in Lamkiphanta using stabilised CSEB blocks as also several ECD centres in various places.

January 2009

Handover the know-how and equipment to one or more entrepreneur groups who would then offer their services at a reasonable margin for construction of DOE schools or for other clients and would organise all logistics and ensure quality in workmanship and material.  

While invitations for the above events would be sent separately this is just to share the general plan of activities in the next few months.

Best wishes

Sonam