Prashuma Rai, is currently an English Fellow at Parsa’s Gyan Batika Secondary School as part of Teach For Nepal Fellowship. She has been stationed at Parsa for about a year and a half now, where she has involved herself in a lot of other activities along with teaching. This Parent-Teacher meeting is one of such activities. This was an extremely important event for her as she believed parents and guardians had to involve themselves with the school to make sure it runs efficiently.

Sharing her first-year’s effort when it was a gigantic task to bring the guardians to the school. This parent’s teachers' meeting was after all the first of its kind in the school and the community itself in about fifty-four years. “ When I first arrived here in 2018, the diverse community left me in awe, they shared agreement in more ways than one including the fact that their children were entitled to quality education. I was quite pleased to see this.” As soon as she realized that this community valued education, she tried communicating with community members and local government to answer related queries. She conducted numerous home visits to familiarize herself with the community and its members. She even claims to have traveled an hour in her bicycle from where she lived to have home visits.

Despite all this and advertising last year’s trimester examination’s Result Day on the radio, the participation of parents on the day itself was minimal. Prashuma understood that the involvement of parents in school activities was very little even with the general belief in the importance of a good education. This led to Prashuma thinking of something, a process that would require her to make her way to the community and settlement of every Gyan Batika student and interact with the parents and the student themselves. She believed that discussing issues together with parents and students would make several perspectives clear.

She named this ‘Aama Santan Antarkriya Karyakram’ (Mother-Child Interaction Program). Before stepping foot into a particular student’s community she would talk to the child first. Once with the student’s parents, she would ask questions concerning the school and the child. She also talked to the student regarding their troubles with school and home. She would then convey her ideas to either side to solve their respective problems. These discussions cover a variety of topics. It is also a good way to peep into how both the parties look like each other. These interactions also make parents and students realize personal errors or flaws which have been affecting either party. “It also helps parents understand the importance of keeping in touch with their child’s school,” says Prashuma.

Prashuma has completed nine of such programs. The success of this program is reflected by the enthusiastic presence of so many guardians in the Parent-Teacher Meeting. Prashuma is aiming to upgrade what she has done to the rural municipality level. She is also receiving ideas from different sources on how to improve this. 

Prashuma Rai completed her Bachelor's of Arts in English from United College. She is currently serving as a Teach For Nepal Fellow in Gyan Batika Secondary School, Subarnapur, Parsa. You can join her along with 137 other Fellows who seek to end education inequity in Nepal through direct service in classrooms by applying for the Teach For Nepal Fellowship for the year 2020.