Riverside School in Nepal

In Nepal, it is very difficult for children to pursue education due to various factors, such as poverty, political condition, and caste system.

In Nepal, government schools have been proved to be failure because they cannot provide good educational facilities for students and because there's no qualifcation system to select teachers.

Poverty prevents parents from sending students to school. They need children to support family. The abandonment of children is common in Nepal too. In addition, the discrimination against lower caste classes and the tradition to have servants are still pervalent and therefore prevents them from learning.

Riverside School was created to give opportunities for children to rereive education regardless of their social status, gender, and financial situation. Many students in the school look very satisfied and eager to learn. They have big dreams and hope to help poor kids in the future.

This film does not provide details about what teachers teach or how they teach.The only information that I got from this film was that the teacher was against the old colonial British style education, where students are the empty cups to just receive whatever provided by teachers. The teachers are trying to take care of students as their children, and they have a few rules in school.

I am not sure whether education at Riverside School has influenced students to be motivated to study because I don't know the details of their education. However, I think the social context and historical factors have a lot to do with their motivation. Because it is so obvious that lack of education causes the viscious cycle of the problems of Nepal, many people see hope in education. Also, they hope to end the misfortune of people so eagarly that they seem to feel responsible for the future of their country.

Many students and teachers mentioned the importance of education, or 'good education.' I wonder what they meant by 'good education.'

I also saw that school is an institution where power structure is carried on to the next generation and the social norms are passed down to the next generation as Burger and Luckman argue. However, I also thought that school like Riverside School can be an institution that can make a change in social norms and structure by empowering students.