Know, think and find us.

          Story of SAV School

           Bageshwori-7,
            Bhaktapur, Nepal  

Introduction:

I
was brought up in a poor rural farmer’s family but my parents never stopped me
going to school. I started going to school when i was 8 and I always came first
in all the classes till Grade 10. Having passed Grade 10 we had to leave our
village for higher studies. So I moved to Kathmandu valley (capital) with my
brother. I had to find a job for living myself since my parents were not at the
level of supporting me financially. But i wanted to continue my further
studies. I got an opportunity to teach in an English medium private school near
Kathmandu; that was in Bhaktapur town. I joined for I.A (Intermediate in Arts)
in an evening campus and continued teaching at the school as a primary math
teacher. Having finished I.A., I studied B.Ed. to become a teacher. I couldn’t
attend my classes in the college as I had to do my teaching job at school for
my two ends meet.

When I
was in the final year one of my friends from Bageshwori (village, where I’m now,
near Bhaktapur town) requested me to start an English medium school in his
village. I surveyed and decided to help villagers as I knew the painful educational situation
of village children. People who were really illiterate and poor were willing to
help me for starting an English medium school but those who could send their
children to the town were not so much positive. I visited and sat on discussion
with the village people three times and reached on decision to start an English
medium school as the children of the village had to walk more than  an hour to reach English medium schools
in the town. The paths would be muddy in the rainy season and dusty in the winter and summer. There was no
bus service. We do not have regular bus service yet due to the poor and narrow
roads. For those reasons, I started Shantideep
Adarsh Vidhyasadan (SAV School) with 13 children of the village in 1996. As I
was brought up in the remote rural area of Nepal, I’ve experienced and could realize
the situation of rural family students. Regarding financial problems I used to
recycle papers myself. (eg; I used to write in ink on sheets of paper. I would
collect them and when my new sheets of paper finished,
I would dip them in soap water (water with castic soda)  and dry them up in
the sun and would reuse them.) I used to make and sell materials from bamboo
for buying pen, books and paper and would pay exam fees. We
never had lunch at school. Though I was the school topper at study, I was once
kicked out from the exam hall since my parents couldn’t pay nominal exam. fee
on time,  etc. These bitter events of my
childhood experience and the educational status and the willingness of the parents
to educate their children/grandchildren in English medium
pushed me to decide to start an English medium school.

I
hired one of my college friends to teach these innocent 13 students in my
absence. Next year the number of students increased. More villagers sent their
children to school as
they knew our hard work. Gradually the number of students increased and we went on
upgrading the school every year. We have 10
classrooms from Nursery to grade 6. We had 127 students last year.

New school year
has begun (mid April). Unfortunately number of students decreased this year due
to lack of school’s funding on hiring good teachers and the low income of the
school. School collects $3 to $6 from the parents of the students, and each
teacher gets below $50 each month which is really a low pay comparatively to
the public school teachers. Me. (Founder Director of the SAV School) have been
working in a public school as a teacher so that I can get better salary there
and pay my teachers who teach at the SAV. I really want to spend my time with
the SAV students, but it’s a pity, I can’t give them full time due to the
financial crisis at the SAV. To solve this problem to some extent, I’m working as a
part time English teacher in a nearby public school whic is about 40 minutes
walf from the SAV School. Indeed the SAV students and guardians want me full
time at the SAV School.

Goals:

SAV School along
with the partner or donor agencies aims to reach the following goals:

1. to strenthen Financial
position of the school so that teachers and other staffs
are well paid.  

2. to bring modern technology into the SAV School
classroom.

3. to establish well furnished school library (SL) and
computer lab with intenet connectivity and Science lab. 

4. to build own school building on its own property.

5. to bring materials of the games and
sports .