George Goodhart, Teach First Ambassador shares about his experience in Dhanusha and Sindupalchowk along with Teach for Nepal

It was on the third day of my placement in Dhanusha district, sitting on the floor of a cheerfully decorated classroom, that I first really understood the ethos of Teach For Nepal. Chetana Sedai, a second-year English fellow, was opening our Cluster Meeting by sharing her experiences with peers. After outlining the many personal and professional challenges faced over the previous 18 months, she paused and addressed her co-fellows directly: ‘You will never get this chance again’.

I’d arrived in Nepal one week earlier, fresh from completing my own fellowship with Teach First, the English partner organisation of the global Teach For All network. After two years in a London classroom, I wanted to learn how a Teach For All partner might adapt to a contrasting educational environment, while upholding the shared aim of ensuring that all children can reach their potential. Over 100 hours of lesson observation and countless conversations with fellows, TFN staff, and local stakeholders, I’ve come much closer to answering this question, finding a few differences in the practices and strategies of Teach First and Teach For Nepal.

Firstly, community engagement sits right at the heart of Teach For Nepal’s work. Many of the most pressing challenges facing its fellows lie outside the classroom; focus on pedagogical practice alone will struggle to shift the dial on educational inequality. For instance, schools in the Dhanusha cluster see persistent low attendance, as students are often called on by families to support them at home, help during harvest or even earn an extra wage in the local brick kilns. To make progress on issues like this, relationship building with the community is essential. Living in the local area, fellows make frequent home visits with families to learn about their circumstances and drive higher attendance through developing personal bonds.

The value of community partnership is embedded right from the very start of the fellowship. Even during the Learning Institute, a day is always dedicated to shramdaan (labour donation), when all TFN staff and fellows work with local students, parents and the wider community on infrastructure requirements in the area. Fellows proudly recalled renovating a stone path in the Sindhupalchok hills during their shramdaan, helping students on their long journeys to school. The bonds forged with the community through projects like this allow fellows to engage with the long task of shifting attitudes to education. In Dhanusha, for example, some families question the value of schooling for girls, as most are expected to marry young and focus on the domestic sphere; fellows spoke of girls as young as Grade 9 disappearing from lessons due to marriage. After building trust with the local community, fellows there have been able to start a ‘Girls Club’, encouraging female students and their families to dream of alternative futures.

Similarly, fellows in Sindhupalchok reported widespread scepticism regarding the long-term value of education in their communities. Many students in these mountain schools plan only to pursue low-skilled work in the Gulf nations or Malaysia, earning a wage through employment that rarely demands formal educational qualifications – this trend is prevalent in the Dhanusha cluster as well. Fellows told me that meaningful conversations during home visits can shift this pattern, highlighting educational pathways to higher-skilled, secure occupations. The Sindhupalchok cluster plan to turn these conversations into a full Careers Fair soon, working with local community leaders to spotlight different professions and the routes students might take to reach them. Community engagement is certainly important in Teach First’s mission too – trainees are encouraged to get to know students and their local area to support classroom progress. However, Teach For Nepal bring this community partnership right to the heart of their movement, visible in both training and practice: here, work with the community outside the classroom can be as impactful as the teaching within schools.

The time I spent with fellows in Dhanusha and Sindhupalchok suggested a second difference in practice between Teach First and Teach For Nepal: the level of mutual support. Of course, Teach First trainees are encouraged to share challenges and solutions together, as well as lean on each other through the many stresses of life as a trainee teacher. However, the fellows I met in Nepal constantly demonstrated a level of care for one another which exceeded the expectations of mutual support which I held as a Teach First trainee. Most fellows I met shared accommodation with a co-fellow, working, eating and sleeping side by side. This relationship represents a vital source of support for teachers, as they navigate in-school challenges while also adjusting to new cultures, languages, and climates in placement communities. Beyond their cluster, fellows rely on the friendship of cohort-mates across the country, as well as TFN’s central staff, affectionately referred to by fellows as didi and dai (older sister and brother). This family spirit is partly thanks to TFN’s scale relative to Teach First – forming close bonds is certainly easier with 25 fellows in each cohort, compared to 1,500 for Teach First. Yet it’s also thanks to careful effort to build connections during the Learning Institute, six weeks of initial training in the community during which fellows from across the country form life-long friendships.

My experience attending the third edition of the Sarvodaya Cup, a school football tournament run by fellows in the Parsa district, demonstrated both TFN’s commitment to community engagement and the exceptional level of mutual support within the organisation. As soon as Friday lessons ended, the Dhanusha fellows gathered at the Janakpur highway for the long trip Parsa. Driving through the Terai evening, singing along to classic Nepali songs, the strength of the TFN community was plain to see – it’s not many teachers who would give up their only day off to travel across the country in support of distant colleagues. On arrival in Parsa, it was wonderful to watch the fellows reconnect with TFN staff and friends from other clusters – one had even travelled all the way from Sindhupalchok to be there. The tournament itself lived up to its Sarvodaya name, lifting the whole community. Principals, friends and local villagers joined TFN staff in cheering on the players, lining the pitch. Girls who may never have kicked a ball before the teams were established by past TFN fellows were treated like stars, every goal celebrated like a World Cup winner. The ambition of the Parsa fellows to drive this extra-curricular project, and the passionate support they were given by the whole TFN community, were simply incredible.

The final difference I observed between Teach For Nepal and Teach First is strategic, demonstrating how each organisation’s theory of change responds to local circumstances. In England, Teach First has the privilege of operating in a relatively well-functioning education system. Over the training programme, the organisation consequently focusses on classroom practice, with most training time dedicated to subject-specific pedagogical skills. After two years, Teach First expect many alumni to stay in teaching (often in their placement school) and develop into school leaders, giving them the chance to shape the education on offer to thousands of students. Though the organisation’s theory of change still recognises the role of alumni outside the classroom, the strategy has increasingly concentrated on driving change within the school system: Teach First aim for 6,000 alumni in school leadership positions by 2030.

In contrast, Teach For Nepal operates in an education system which is not yet functioning effectively throughout the country. As such, working from within schools to drive change is extremely challenging; even principals, as many told me, are often restricted by the influence of local politics. Teach For Nepal’s theory of change reflects these circumstances. While great classroom teaching remains central to the mission, TFN prioritise leadership development over the two years of fellowship. This prepares alumni to work beyond the classroom in ‘areas that drive structural change’, whether it be in policy, NGOs or the private sector. For example, one fellow was shocked by high grade students lacking foundational skills during her fellowship. As an alumnus, she drew on this experience to establish an NGO applying the TFN model to early childhood teaching. With the continuing support of TFN, a growing pool of alumni aim to reshape Nepali education from outside the classroom - carrying with them still the values instilled by two years working in the community.

These reflections have focussed chiefly on differences between Teach First and Teach For Nepal; it’s worth remembering that much more unites the two movements than divides them. Over two years with Teach First I worked with countless talented, driven and passionate people at all levels of the organisation, sharing a common ambition to fight educational inequality and unlock the potential of all children. In Nepal, I’ve been lucky enough to get to know a group of educators showing the very same passion, care and determination, working in often difficult circumstances to deliver a brighter future for the children in their community. Beyond this unifying purpose, we even share some of the same practical experiences: while hiking uphill to a Sindhupalchok school, I exchanged notes with the cluster lead Lokesh Khadaka on our mutual teeth-grinding during stressful nights as first- year teachers!

I’m hugely grateful to the whole Teach For Nepal family for their warmth, support, and willingness to share during my months here. As the organisation looks to the future, I’m sure that TFN will grow its impact even further while holding on to the practices and values which make it such a powerful movement already.

George Goodhart is a Teach First 2023 Ambassador. After teaching History and Politics at Gunnersbury Catholic School in London, he travelled to Nepal to spend a few months working with TFN’s Training and Leadership Development team