The district education office (DEO) has developed a curriculum and text book for the purpose. The textbook is titled ´Apple Farming and Marketing. [break]
The book has been written by Govinda Bahadur Pachai, principal of Satyabadi Secondary School in Dasaudi VDC. Pachai has been in the teaching profession since 1988.
According to DEO records, over 2,500 copies of the textbook have already been sold to students.
Though Pachai wrote the book in 2008, the DEO made the apple farming course mandatory for all primary-level students enrolled in public schools in the district only after two years.
“Jumla is suitable for apple cultivation, but farmers still practice traditional methods of cultivation. The apple farming course is aimed at developing apple cultivation as a mainstay of farming in the district,” said Pachai.
The course book includes detailed descriptions of the techniques of managing an apple farm and tools for hoeing and setting up an apple nursery. Likewise, students are also taught other aspects of apple farming such as irrigation processes, use of fertilizers, apple tree disease and ways to curb it, methods of plucking the apples and marketing techniques.
“The content of the textbook is modern and international and can help increase apple production in the district many-fold,” informed Pachai. He maintained that the textbook is written in lucid language that primary-level students can grasp easily.
The course, which carries 100 marks in full, consists of 128 teaching hours.
“Students of grades one and two are finding the course a bit hard but there is no such problem with students from grades four and five,” said Top Bahadur Buda, school inspector in the district. He informed that the DEO is working to make the textbook prescribed for grades one and two a little easier.
Educational experts in the district see the course introduced in the public schools as a change-maker in apple farming in the district. They believe it is likely to introduce modern methods of apple cultivation among locals.
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Acting District Education Officer Jiwan Bahadur Bhandari said the country would benefit a lot from apple farming if the course could also be introduced in other districts of Karnali Zone.
The nature of the soil in many parts of the Karnali is considered good for apple cultivation. But for lack of proper initiatives, locals have not been able to turn apple farming into a major cash crop.
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