In such a situation, is it worth preparing for and even passing the SLC exams when most of our students become no better than mere examinees?[break]
“The current education up to SLC is incomplete in a sense that students in most schools are not encouraged to follow their academic interests,” says Nimesh Ghimire, 20, secretary of internal affairs at Nepalko Yuwa and British Council’s Global Changemakers who designed and initiated Goreto.
While Nepal’s high school curriculum is totally theoretical and schools compel students to focus completely on rote learning and how to pass the SLC exams, Goreto has an alternative SLC: Scholarship, Leadership and Citizenship.
“Goreto isn’t an academic program but more of a model of a set of life skills we think high school students need to grasp, apart from their regular time in academics,” says Nimesh.
Goreto is a youth empowerment project to acquaint high school students with the values of scholarship, leadership and citizenship.
The project made its debut at Gandaki Boarding School of Pokhara in March 2010.
Goreto, with the support of Nepalko Yuwa and funding from British Council’s Global Changemakers Initiative, has so far approached 900 high school students in eight hill and Tarai districts through Goreto team members who are selected according to their demonstrated scholarship, leadership and citizenship traits.
In January 2009, during the junior year of high school at Budanilkantha School, Nimesh was invited to attend a youth forum organized by Global Changemakers in the United Kingdom. Goreto is his “Community Action Project” under the Global Changemakers program.
How did he come up with the concept of Goreto?
Nimesh explains, “Goreto is an attempt to share the insights I developed at Budanilkantha School, the experience of various innovative community engagements I was involved in for the past three years, and the various perspectives I gathered while traveling to other countries.
“I wanted people to challenge the conventional and outworn traditions and contribute to the community in areas of their scholarly interests,” Nimesh further adds.
In 2007, Nimesh, then 17, realized something was not right in the way kids are taught here and something needed to be done.
This feeling motivated him to co-found the Minimally Invasive Education (MIE) project, a volunteer-based program which focused on utilizing classroom resources at the maximum level, making learning interesting through different activities and encouraging peer cooperation. The “Scholarship” aspect of Goreto continues to be the core value of MIE.
How does Goreto act as an alternative SLC?
Goreto, Nimesh explains, is a “stimulant” to encourage students to get more involved in academics, helping them keep in mind that they can only reach their maximum academic potential by following the subject of their scholarly interest and passion.
Let’s go back to school and make sure you remember how your teacher used to ask you to give a memorized - rather readymade - answer. You may also remember how you were punished for not being able to give the exact answer your teacher had dictated earlier.
That’s the way of teaching Goreto’s scholarship aims to change.
Let us also remember the Bollywood box office hit, “3 Idiots.” The notion of change in education as well as change in people’s perception depicted in the movie fits with the type of change the Scholarship aspect of Goreto wants to bring about.
“A person interested in becoming a photographer is diverted by the society to pursue engineering,” says Nimesh. Natural sciences, he says, are still much higher in the society’s perception hierarchy than social sciences.
“Through Goreto, we discourage this and encourage them to continually challenge themselves to think out of the box, explore ways to make their education meaningful, and contribute to their society and the nation at large,” Nimesh adds.
The need to upgrade education for the innovation-driven 21st Century has been a rallying cry around the world. The age-old education system of Nepal indeed needs some real changes. At this defining moment, Goreto tries to renew the way our schools teach to meet the challenges of the changing times.
The most significant aspect of ‘Scholarship’ is that it encourages students to realize their unique talents and play their part in educating themselves. It inspires them to do what they love doing, set their goals and follow their dreams - not merely to be good test takers but to be successful in their lives.
We also need leaders - not just political - in every field, to drive change and innovation. Leadership, one of the three pillars of Goreto, is aimed at providing essential leadership skills to young high school students to prepare them for their endeavors as agents of change in the future.
We live in a global village where what we do and where we live matters less than what we know and how we think. Leadership aims to prepare the young to compete in the global arena by providing them essential entrepreneurial and leadership skills and also driving them with a passion to create a better world.
“Nimesh looks forward to educating the community on how to start developing itself and eventually sustaining that development,” Gabriela Jaeger, a strong supporter of the Goreto project and the head of community projects for Global Changemakers, informed Republica via an e-mail interview.
She says, “These changes will not be unnoticed, and soon other communities within Nepal will look at what they can do to improve their situation and eventually the hope is that more citizens, especially the youth, will become more proactive and bring about change within their respective communities.”
The sense of social responsibility and the spirit of volunteerism are rare to find in Nepal where “take more and give less” is the mantra. The initiators of Goreto realize this and they have emphasized the values of social responsibility and volunteerism through “Citizenship,” the third pillar of Goreto.
Corruption is rife, including in Nepal. Therefore, “Citizenship” aims to instill the spirit of service to the community among the young early in their schooldays.
The Goreto Project also comprised the major share of the Yuwa Sammelan organized on January 15 in which 30 high school students from St Mary’s College, Chelsea International Academy and Malpi Institute were brought together to introduce them to the three values of the project.
The participants, in groups, worked on designing a community project which they wish to implement through Goreto. During the project designing process, the participants were encouraged to keep in mind their “interests.”
A detailed workshop for the 30 participants is being conducted this month to help them translate their ideas into action.
They will also be encouraged to take their inspiration to three schools in the rural areas, and also explore the possibility of collaboration in joint community projects with their rural counterparts.
“Goreto will help high school students and youth of developing communities to realize and register their inner calling by giving them the courage to pursue their passion and take innovative initiatives to fill in the voids they see in their communities, thereby developing themselves into scholars, leaders and citizens,” opines Nimesh.
Goreto, through its national tour, also plans to reach all 75 districts in Nepal. In addition, Goreto, in collaboration with Future Voice International, is also planning a regional tour across SAARC countries.
Indeed, Nimesh is a beacon of change, and Goreto, as an alternative SLC, will keep on guiding and inspiring Nepali students to find their own way and follow their dreams, take initiatives in their fields of interest and serve the community through what they do in their lives as responsible citizens.
Inspired by the model of mentorship of the Goreto Project in Nepal, this project has also been replicated in Indonesia.
“The Goreto Project in Nepal has made a great impact; it even inspired Ghian Tjandaputra, another Global Changemaker in Indonesia, to undertake a similar project within his community, so we can already see this idea spreading internationally,” says Gabriela.
She says, “Ghian’s main ambition for this project is to create youth awareness and later awareness in general - for problems within his society namely poverty, corruption, unemployment, environmental issues and the broken education system.
“The feedback from the youth and the community has been fantastic and they continue to support this great project,” she further adds.
When asked about how Goreto can make an impact in developing communities elsewhere in the world, Gabriela says Goreto Nepal can be used as a blueprint to see what steps need to be taken to ensure change within other communities internationally and what problems can arise when pushing for change and development.
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