Kathmandu: Surendra Bista, a BEd student at the Sanothimi Campus, taught for 22 days at the Bhaktapur-based Bode Secondary School a decade ago, quite short of 30 periods required to pass the 100-mark practice teaching exam.

These days, Bista is busy preparing for the written exam due in April next year, which is meant to select 11 supervisors.

Supervisors are tasked with monitoring schools and helping teachers with teaching-learning activities.

But the three-year BEd programme is inadequate for school supervision, a technical job that involves dealing with teachers with years of teaching experience.

A wannabe supervisor sits for the exam that has objective questions carrying 100 marks, the other test of 10 theoretical questions carrying 10 marks and a brief interview with the weightage of 25 marks. The top scorers are deployed for school supervision without any skill-oriented training.

Bista, a non-gazetted first class officer at the National Centre for Educational Development, opines that school supervisors’ exams should be more practical than theoretical.

Ganesh Bhattarai, spokesperson for the Curriculum Development Centre, echoes Bista. “It takes at least a year for new school supervisors to be familiar with their responsibilities,” Bhattarai says.

He stresses the need for a four-year graduation course, with three-year practical classes and a yearlong theory-oriented session.

Records at the Education Ministry show that about 80 per cent of first-graders abort studies before grade X, mainly due to the absence of school supervision and monitoring.

“Sending inexperienced supervisors in schools is like pushing a man into a swimming pool, who does not know how to swim,” says Nakul Baniya, researcher on school supervision and under-secretary at the Policy Division of the Ministry of Education.

“Supervisors should be given necessary training before sending them to schools.”

Perhaps aware of their inadequate skills, including the lack of teaching experience, no supervisor has ever inspected the classes of Yadu Adhikari, who has been teaching Mathematics at the Naxal-based Nandi Secondary School for the past 32 years.

Bista, unsure whether he can perform his duties well if he makes it through the exam, offers a better suggestion.He says teachers with 8-10 years of experience should be made supervisors.to do their job.

source: The Himalayan Times, 13 Dec 2011