On being a school inspector!

The children are at school in Nepal for six days a week, Sunday to Friday with Saturday being the day of rest here.
It's a very interesting experience seeing at first hand the education here. The children rote-learn every lesson and everything is taught in English. For each subject the children have a text book with a passage and questions to check knowledge. Lesson planning is almost non-existent as the lessons consist of just working through the book. For differentiation the children write in exercise books for the higher ability, or answer the questions in their text books if they are not so able!
I am constantly amazed at what these children manage. We would not expect a 6 year old child to copy and answer long passages in a foreign language, but this is what they do. All subjects including topics such as health, the books are in English. The children really have no great comprehension at this age; they are just learning to read the passage and find the relevant part to write the answer. When you question them deeper, the understanding is often not there. Another problem is the shear amount of homework they are given. The lessons are 40 mins long and there are 8 per day. Nearly every subject teacher sets homework per day, this means that the following lesson which is fairly short anyway is taken up with homework checking, followed by the next page of the book. There is no introduction to the lesson, no objective and no real assessment of where the understanding lies. And therein lies the problem.
The headmaster of the school has asked me to observe and give feedback to the teachers. There are complaints that the children are ill-disciplined, lacking in respect and do not do their homework always. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?? :)
It definitely sounds like every school I've ever worked at!
Many of the teachers are new at the school and corporal punishment is still a big part of discipline control in Nepal. Since the school is run by an Australian charity, this was stopped about 18 months ago. The teachers will often struggle to maintain good discipline in the classroom as they are so reliant upon one method of control.
So, I have become that most dreaded of beings - I feel like an Ofsted inspector!
Luckily, it has got easier and the teachers understand that I am there to help and give advice as much as I can. There are several of the younger teachers who want things to change and do not like the rote method.
The biggest thing is children talking and shouting out. It's showing the teachers other ways of gaining respect other than hitting to make then behave and it's teaching things like demeanour so that the children are more likely to respect them. There seems to be an attitude of 'It's cultural, the children behave like this' to which I reply, they are exactly the same in England. :)
The other big issue is use of resources. An example recently was a lesson with the older children of 15/16 years who were studying physics and light rays. One of the questions was about the type of lens used in a microscope. So I drew one on the board to explain and the question asked was 'Where do you look in?' Because they had never used one, they were trying to answer a question whereby they had no real concept of what they were talking about. How can you learn science which is such a practical subject, without actually touching and working with the things you are trying to learn about? So many concepts are lost on the children, as I said, they know the rote answer but they have no real idea of applying it.
That's not to say that I am criticising the efforts of the teachers here. I am full of praise for them because I certainly couldn't teach a subject in something other than my own language. The teachers have varying abilities in English ranging from fairly basic grammar to a Masters. I'm wondering if it would be better to teach the subjects in Nepali and use English words for the technical language only? I understand that they are pushing education forward rapidly here, but it really might be better if the teachers can teach in their own native language rather than try to translate into another language. In depth questioning and checking understanding really needs to be at a level both child and teacher are comfortable with.
The difficulty with this would be the text books. All are written in English and the exams are written in English, they are not always proof-read by a native-English speaker so some phrases are really unusual. I’ve ended up sometimes saying, ‘I’m very sorry, I think it means this but I’m not sure!’
I’ll end by putting the link in for the school again for those of you that may have missed it. Please look at it and if you feel so inclined add this to your charity list. People are working incredibly hard to make sure that all children get access to a good education here, but it takes money and every little helps.
HEARTLANDS CHILDREN'S ACADEMY
Video about HCA