Schooling part II: What are we paying for?

Stairs to education, if there was some.

Registration and admission fee: 22,000 NRs

Annual fee: 11, 000 NRs

Deposit: 11,000 NRs

Annual books fee: 4,583 NRs

Monthly tuitition fee: 11,000 NRs

Multiplied by two.

Total? If you count it up, please don't tell me. I want to live in denial and am too scared to have a look at the balance of my bank account.

But no, that was still an affordable option of many other possibilities and the school, or the schools, as they lie in different locations, are lovely and friendly and have a non-judgemental, permissive athmosphere to them.

School begins at 9 a.m. and finishes at 3 p.m. for the smaller ones, and 4.30 p.m. for the older ones. Following a Montessori method pupils choose which subject to study at which time and independently go ahead with their choises, with assistance of teachers if required. In one classroom there are three grades mixed and a presence of three teachers. If a pupil feels like taking a break, he or she can. They must also take time for seeing to their daily responsibility areas. Responsibilities include activities such as taking the school dog for a walk, dusting bookshelfs, sweeping the floors, arranging flowers in pots, feeding the chickens, going shopping with the school driver, greeting others by the gate at their arrival with a "namaste", helping with food serving and so on.

Physical education happens on a daily basis: ball games and other sports, swimming, going for walks, karate, even meditation. Artistic subjects also daily: music, drama, arts.

After a week I could already see A easing up and coming out of his protective shell, having made several friends and obviously realising that he is not going to be pushed against the wall by his peers and mocked for not having a playstation or not knowing the coolest, newest computer games. It's ok to read here, it's ok to be sensitive and soft, it's ok not to be the same. No one in this society is.

Good-bye continuous Pisa-winning Finnish schools where you are loaded, if not by bullying (if you are lucky enough for some strange reason to avoid it), then by a heavy load of homework, constant testing, comparison and stressed teachers, but where pupils become out as the best readers and most talented in scientific subjects in the whole of EU.

Nevermind, if they learn to express themselves, take responsibility and understanding over their own actions and decisions, come out socially talented and with a skill to discuss and a sound, curious attitude towards learning, then that, in my value-system overrides the qualities first mentioned.

Soon the schools will close along with the arrival of the cold season as the heating costs would be just far too much if they stayed open. Therefore, all the above said, it would be really very good if the children could soon continue a little while longer with all those activities at their schools, which have been closed this week due to a teachers strike.

The team has spent the idle days playing shop, which is a good thing I guess, in case they miss out on the marvellous education altogether and will have to think of alternate ways of making a living, something that requires no educational background.

Empty school grounds, due to strike.