You will be entrusting your children to and spending your hard-earned money on this school for the next 10 years 

Dear Parent,
It’s that time of year again in Nepal: school admission time. The newspapers are filled with pictures of happy kids advertising schools. Alongside these ads is advice from reporters and experts telling you about education. As a responsible parent, you have asked friends and family for their thoughts.

You plan to explore each school carefully. But what should you look for? Should you be impressed by the big board of SLC toppers outside the school? Or are there other things that you should take into account in making this decision?

Let us start by eliminating the things you should not care about very much. Parents often assess a school by its infrastructure. While good infrastructure is a plus, I do not place it among the top three factors to consider when choosing a school. If the building is safe, well-lit and moderately comfortable, eliminate infrastructure as a criteria. What about the SLC results? Having spent hours playing around with SLC data, particularly cross referencing results across private schools, I have discovered this: the vast majority of results in most private schools in Kathmandu are first division and a large number are distinctions. This is to say the SLC is a non-factor because all Kathmandu-based private schools do pretty well. 

Having eliminated the two main criteria that most parents stress over, I might have left you even more confused. What should you look for? My advice is that you find a school that matches your values i.e. a school that shares your attitude towards education, towards how a child should relate to those in authority, and towards what the purpose of education is. To know if these values are shared, I suggest you investigate three factors: role of leadership, teaching in practice, and student culture. 
  
Role of leadership
Leadership is one significant factor distinguishing good schools. You definitely want to start by talking with the principal and other school leaders. What do you want to know from them? 

First, you want to know if they have a coherent vision or approach for the school. Are they guided by a particular approach to learning? Do they have a clear sense of what values matter to them? Can they articulate what skills and abilities students will have once they graduate?

If the school leaders cannot articulate these things to you clearly, you can assume they cannot articulate it to teachers and staff either. In that case, the school will be a mishmash of efforts which may not be leading anywhere, except toward memorization for the SLC. Instead, you want a school where the leaders and teachers are working coherently towards a shared vision.

Second, you want to know how active school leaders are in communicating this vision to their teachers. How frequently does the school leadership talk to the teachers? Are these conversations just about administrative details such as salaries and vacations? Or are they also about the direction of the school? Does the principal directly lead training sessions, engage in classroom observations and provide feedback to teachers? If not, who does? And how closely do they work with the principal?

If the school leaders are not putting in the time to share their values with their team, it does not matter how good their values sound. You want an active school leader who is deeply engaged in the teaching-learning process. The best way to figure this out is to talk to individual teachers without a school leader around. You can also ask existing students what they have observed their principals doing. Children are very perceptive and will give you a great sense of how the school leaders spend their time. 

Teaching in practice
By talking to the school leadership, you have understood what is supposed to be happening. Now you want to see what is actually happening. The best way to do this is to arrange to sit-in on a class.

In class, I would look closely to see if the students are comfortable taking risks and getting things wrong. Because I value learning by experimenting, I want a classroom that rewards people who take chances. I would also look to see if students support each other when problems arise. In many classrooms, students make fun of their friends when they give an incorrect answer. This may seem like a small thing. But it is a big sign that the school/teacher has not tried to cultivate a culture of collaborative problem-solving.

I would also observe carefully how the teacher deals with disruptions and disruptive students. I would frown on any yelling, hitting, and other such coercive methods. Equally, I would also be wary of schools and teachers without techniques to be firm with students. I value a well-disciplined classroom because it allows more children to learn better. In my ideal classroom, teachers are firm without being mean. 

After observing a class, ask teachers questions similar to those you asked school leaders. What are the values of this school? How does that influence teachers? What are teachers’ end goals for the students? This allows you to confirm whether the values of the school leadership are shared widely.

Finally, I would also ask teachers how much training and support they get. Particularly, find out if teachers update their lesson plans regularly, if not yearly. If most teachers are using the lesson plan they made when they started teaching, it is a red flag. The answer to this question is a good indicator of how committed teachers are to their craft.

Student culture  
One of the biggest influences shaping your child’s behavior and values will be those of his/her peers. Understanding how existing students act and think is critical. Try to get a hold of a few current students without their teachers around. What would you ask them? That depends on what you think is important. 

I would certainly ask questions about copying in homeworks and exams. A culture of rampant cheating (which unfortunately is present in our schools and encouraged by the way we test) would give me pause. Is that really what I want my children to be learning? I don’t think they should be in an environment where cheating is acceptable and normalized. 

I would also ask students about the other students they look up to. If I found that people with talent—a great musician or a great writer—were admired, that would be a good culture. But if the unruly students are admired, I would be cautious. To follow up, I would also ask what other students think of the hardworking and determined students. If the school culture is set up such that peers disrespect you for putting effort into your school work, no amount of yelling/coaxing/bribing from the parents is going to make a significant difference.

Do not ask students these questions directly. Instead, ask them to tell stories. For example, you might ask: Is there a senior dai or didi that everything thinks highly of? What are they like? Or you might ask: Who has the hardest time understanding the material in your class? What do the teachers say to them? Such questions will allow you to indirectly assess how teachers behave with difficult and/or weak students.

The points of observation above are consistent with my values. You will have to think about how to look for the things you value. If all of this sounds like hard work that will take a lot of time—you are right. It really is time-consuming and hard! However, it is worth doing. You will be entrusting your children to and spending your hard-earned money on this school for the next 10 years. Don’t you want to spend at least 10 days making sure it is the best environment for your child?

The author is founder of Karkhana, ‘an education company and makerspace with a unique approach to learning’ 

 
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