In its inaugural issue, the editor justified the need for such a magazine by emphasizing that the responsibility to make about five million (50 lakhs) Nepali school students (through 12th grade) “literate, educated and capable citizens” fell on the shoulders of about 150,000 (1.5 lakh) schoolteachers. Arguing that the link between a robust Nepali future and good teaching in the schools was obvious, the editorial suggested that the magazine was an outcome of the realization that “Nepali society and the press should continually keep a tab on the activities and practices of the schools, children and the teachers.” It was further stated that all concerns related to school education fell within the remit of this magazine but the focus of its analyses would be on the position of the teacher in the school system. Hence the title Shiksak – teacher – was adopted for this magazine.
The editors further claimed that they wanted “to open doors of communication between teachers and communities about education, pedagogy and teachers” and thereby contribute toward the enhancement of intellectual and professional skills of the latter. They also claimed that through their journalistic work they wanted “to enhance the morale of the teachers by restoring the social prestige of teaching as a profession, and establish teaching as a profession of choice rather than a jagir.” The editors further asserted that they wanted the magazine to be a bridge of communication between the community of teachers and relevant policymakers, and a platform to deliver interesting ideas about education and pedagogy circulating in the international sphere. In other words, this was going to be not only a special-theme magazine (on school education) but one dedicated to the particular location of the teacher.
After completing 24 issues – a lifespan that most magazines started in Nepal never reach – it will be upto the editors and the readers at large, especially readers who are schoolteachers, to judge whether some of the ambitious goals described above have already been met partially. I am not in a position to judge these aspects of the enterprise. What I can do instead is to evaluate the magazine’s content from the point of view of journalistic performance.
The magazine
Almost from the very beginning, the magazine has consisted of an editorial and news items, often several short ones, discussing recent happenings that are relevant to school education. It also has a letters-to-the-editor space, some four pages in recent issues. Each 64-page issue also carries a number of reports, written by in-house journalists and freelancers. The cover story usually comes as a package of reports, op-eds from teachers or education researchers, experience-based essays, interviews and excerpts of conversations between relevant folks, organized by the editors. Sometimes, reports related to the cover theme based on the experiences of other countries are also published.
The magazine also contains other op-eds, sometimes on specific themes from more than one writer and memoirs of teachers and students. It also carries essays that have been translated into Nepali from other languages, features on topics not related to school education directly and self-help essays (e.g. ‘How to write in English?’). The magazine also carries a profile of a good teacher and also interviews. Most issues also carry a review of a book or a film. Occasionally excerpts from relevant documents are also published.
Most recently, some new columns have been added. One, Manka Kura, is a platform for practicing teachers to pour their heart out on a topic of their choice. A question and answer column has also been added where questions posed by practicing teachers are answered by a relevant authority.
Reports published have been mostly in the category of in-depth reports with a few verging on what could be called ‘investigative’ reports. Journalists who have written them have for the most part not done extensive study of documents, but as is the case for mainstream broadsheet dailies and newsmagazines, they have mostly relied upon human sources in an attribute-mode of journalistic practice. In terms of how well they have done so, I would say they have matched the existing best practices in the profession. Many reports, as can be expected, highlight policy and practical problems (‘helmet’ teachers, foreign visits of educational bureaucrats, plight of teachers in private schools, etc.) whereas others have a more ‘human interest’ emphasis (e.g. madhesi teachers in schools in the hills, Nepali teacher in a Hong Kong school, retired but not tired teachers, etc.)
The modality of focusing on a particular theme as a cover report story and publishing other related items in various genres, as noted above, is something Dahal had done when he was the editor of the newsmagazine Himal Khabarpatrika. Hence it is not a surprise to see that model being executed here. In most issues, the cover story package is quite extensive (e.g., good teachers in the eyes of students, women heads of schools, teachers with fake educational certificates, SLC exams, etc.) whereas in a few, it is not.
There are opinion articles in each issue. Among them, most are thought pieces or based on personal experiences. Only a few draw upon the corpus of research findings on various aspects of school education in Nepal. Many of these are available in published articles and unpublished ‘grey’ literature produced by consultants who have worked in this field since the 1950s. To bring this knowledge to the pages of this magazine, the editors will have to recruit more education researchers to write for it; thus far, only a few such individuals have written. Also, journalists employed by this magazine should pay more attention to educational research carried out by academics. This community of knowledge producers, like their colleagues in other fields, and their practices, are rarely monitored by the media in Nepal.
The donor community’s involvement in Nepal’s education has been the subject of only a few reports and opinion articles, but this is a topic whose different aspects deserve continuous scrutiny. Adequate attention has not been paid to the state-fixed curricula adopted in public schools, and the variations exercised by private schools on the SLC syllabi. This is a topic of great significance as the Nepali ethos becomes multi-cultural for real within a polity that is a federal republic. Some attention to the changing landscape of higher education in Nepal could also be given since schoolteachers are also expected to guide their wards about post-school careers. Others, I am sure, have their own list of themes that have not been adequately covered in the pages of Shiksak thus far.
Among those writing non-education-related features, Tirtha Bahadur Shrestha appears frequently with essays on the natural world. They are interesting, but the editors should find others who can write as authoritatively on other fields. They should also consider publishing extracts from long articles that have appeared in specialist journals.
The profiles of teachers and teacher-administrators are, for the most part, excellent. Those with an interest in the post-Rana history of Nepal would find in these writings inspiring stories about heroes who have made a difference in the local spaces of Nepali society. In the long run, the editors should consider putting together all the teacher profiles they have published in the form of a separate book.
I found the interviews with various teachers to be gentle “jhamkabhet”s and hence interesting for the human stories they highlight. One wishes some of these would have more serious journalistic inquiry elements in them, and the interviewer would exercise caution not to reduce them to the level of pop media interviews (e.g. why should a single woman teacher be asked when she plans to marry?)
I am told that the print run for Shiksak has now reached the 15,000 mark and its cover price of Rs 30 covers only about half of the costs involved. I do not know if the retail sales and advertisement revenue can fully sustain this sort of magazine in the long run. When I was part of the editorial team of the bimonthly Himal in the late 1990s, we could not raise enough money from advertisement and recover money from retailers to keep that magazine alive. So we gave up on that effort in 1998. Given the public service a magazine focused on school education can provide in the long run, it is imperative that, if needed, Shiksak be continuously subsidized through grants from donors and NGOs interested in the field of education.
I have never been a schoolteacher, but in my long student life in Nepal and the US, I was fortunate to have studied with several dedicated and inspiring teachers who taught me the fundamentals of the skills and knowledge that I now possess as an academic. When I read various issues of Shiksak, memories of classroom experiences rush through my mind.
I would not be surprised if many teachers who read this monthly magazine feel bonded with other members of their community engaged in the schools all over Nepal. This experience of their bonding with other colleagues in the profession, most of whom working in areas beyond the face-to-face locality, could be a real force for positive change in our classrooms in the long run. Shiksak needs to be kept alive for the realization of that change.
(Onta is a historian of 20th century Nepal and is based at Martin Chautari.)
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