May 31, Kathmandu- Implementing the syllabus and textbooks! Wait, what is this? Author guess this would be the first thought of the readers when they read the title. Syllabus and books need no formal introduction and elaboration for the readers to become acquainted with. They are like muscle and nail of the a fingers. We now focus particularly on the textbooks of the schooling level. The school level textbooks are written by Curriculum Development Centre (CDC), on behalf of the government of Nepal, whereas individual authors come up with their ideas, knowledge, and expertise and publish textbooks for students for various academic levels.

Now let us begin our discussion. A textbook should be written in such a way that it allows readers(particularly students in our case as we are talking about schooling level) to think, judge, imagine, and find out how the lessons are provided for practical application in their daily life. While comparing the textbooks published by CDC, and by other publications, the difference can be vividly seen and felt. Other authors have been found to have writing textbooks elaborating the contents to provide the students with the knowledge about the required chapter, with only few questions or none to let them imagine or visualize about the content that they have read. However, in the case of CDC, theories for teaching and learning have been well adopted, where each chapter begins with discussion then followed by brief content and short elaboration. This immediately gives it an upper hand and makes it better than the books published by other authors. Now let us evaluate the teaching process, because it solely depends upon the teachers, how he teaches, irrespective of the nature of the book. Modern theories suggest that the teaching-learning process should be dynamic with frequent communication and interactions between teachers and students. This entirely depends upon teachers.

When we look at the context of Nepal, then we find that the books written by CDC are mostly used in government schools, which have qualified teachers who have passed the Teachers Service Commission examination. The teachers are trained with modern teaching theories, but the results of government schools themselves are poor in comparison to private schools, who don't even use CDC’s textbooks, about which we praised in our earlier paragraph about their peculiar feature of having successfully integrated the teaching theories. It is fairly seen that even the private schools do not follow the teaching-learning methodologies as prescribed in the textbooks of CDC, but still achieve better results. We shall not discuss the general nature of students because it is evident that in government schools, mostly economically challenged and academically weak students are found. This then raises the fundamental question, “Why government schools have failed to achieve better results when they have got better teachers and better textbooks(prepared by CDC)? The only reasonable solution we can see is failing to implement the syllabus as prescribed in textbooks, that should need to be done from early childhood development classes.

Thus, implementing the syllabus here refers to the proper use of teaching-learning activities prescribed in the books, which should be demonstrated by the teachers themselves in the schools, irrespective of the nature school, either it be public or private. Science and Maths teachers should allow imagination and visualization of contents so that students may come up with logic and reasons aided with fact to answer and solve a given question. Language and literature teachers like of English, Nepali, Sanskrit and other language must encourage students to write creative answers on their own, being sufficiently able to elaborate and comprehend the given topics whereas teachers of subjects like social studies and health should be able to demonstrate the given chapter in terms of personal views and working process of society for the healthy relation of individual and society. Field work, experiments, and team work should be encouraged which can enable students to evaluate their knowledge in an individual sense and within a team in a given environment. Project works should be encouraged, so that students can learn about presenting a solved problem crossing the boundary of notebooks and homeworks. And yes! All these things are available in the syllabus and textbooks prescribed in the syllabus, which just needs formal implementation in the classroom as we discussed. The problem with us is finishing the syllabus and course work in due time with the teaching-learning methodologies, and that requires training of manpower(here teachers), so that they are able to follow the given methodologies in the textbooks to provide students with sufficient knowledge and exercise to boost their wisdom. Author argues the same for the university level, with project works and seminars, and argues that in this way we can expect a positive outcome in the sector of teaching-learning and whole academia in general.

Author's Bio: Arjun Dahal is scholar, currently teaching Physics and Mathematics at Gauriganj Secondary School, and Physics at Doramaari Secondary School. He has published 32 books on literature and philosophy, and 6 are forthcoming tallying at the number 38.