August 21, 2003
Secondary School Educators' Study-Tour Program
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Every year the Japan Foundation invites hundreds of junior and senior high-school teachers and administrators of intermediate-level education from all over the world to the Secondary School Educators' Study-Tour Program to provide them with training and observation opportunities in Japan. This year 217 teachers were invited to the fourteen days program from 88 countries. Mr. Babu Ram Pokharel, Principal of V.S. Niketan Higher Secondary School and Ms. Rekha Pandey, teacher of Rato Bangala School participated in the program from Nepal in June.
The main foci of the program is to provide opportunities for observation of education, culture, and social conditions in Japan and to exchange views with their Japanese counterparts and other participants and thereby contribute to mutual understanding between Japan and their own countries. From start to finish, the schedule was extremely intensive including lecture programs on education policies and the culture of Japan, visits to public schools, cultural and industrial facilities and sightseeing tours in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima and Miyajima island. Opportunities were given throughout the trip for the participants to ask questions and share their experiences with other participants as well as Japanese counterparts.
The Nepali participants remarked that the program was extremely informative and enlightening, offering them the chance to explore the social, cultural and educational aspects of life in Japan. Observing the society and people, they found the socio-cultural norms and values are more or less similar between Japan and Nepal, one significant example of this is close family ties. Mr. Pokharel said, " I was impressed to learn that a high level of cultural ethics has been maintained even in civilized and technologically advanced Japan."
The other highlight of the program was the visit to various public schools. Visiting the elementary school classes in Japan, they found them to be creative and lively, pupils being able to directly interact with teachers. Ms. Pandey said, "Another marvelous thing I found about the Japanese teachers is that they get very actively involved with pupils. For instance, in music classes, teachers dance with pupils while singing. Such active teacher participation encourages children to learn things." Secondly, the classes and the curriculum itself are well organized and practical. "For better management of classroom activities, organization of school curriculum, lesson plan, etc. we educators should introduce a teacher-training system in Nepal and work towards raising the quality of education for the future development of Nepal," remarked Ms. Pandey.
Through various discussions, the participants from every country, as well as Japanese counterparts, found that they had a lot of common ground and face similar problems such as lack of self-discipline and an increasing trend of 'dropouts'. The discussion then led to how the participants from various countries dealt with such problems and possible solutions.
According to the Nepali participants, the values instilled in the Japanese society have inspired them to think over peaceful and sustainable development in Nepal. Furthermore, punctuality, seriousness over designated tasks, hard labor at work and high utilization time are some obvious facts that they were able to gain from this cultural and educational tour.
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