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WELCOME TO TARA EDUCATION
Tara Education is a non-profit organization established in 2009 to help educate teachers and to encourage positive sustainable changes within Nepal’s educational system.
Despite increased access to education, there are major educational deficits that contribute to the fact that Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Currently, around half the population remains illiterate. Problems such as poorly trained teachers, lack of administrational support, limited resources, and outdated learning practices still exist. Tara Education is implementing a more child-centered and interactive approach to learning, enriching the curriculum, and bringing the country’s extraordinary cultural heritage into the classroom.
Teachers are the key to educational change. By changing teacher practices children will learn to become better critical thinkers and problem solvers; enabling them to make the needed changes in their country and to become global citizens.
OUR MISSION
Tara Education is devoted to changing how Nepali teachers are educated in order to bring child-centered and updated teaching practices into the classroom. We believe that government and village schools can better educate their students by encouraging teacher empowerment and a system where teachers help teachers. We aim to implement curricula that reflect Nepali needs and aspirations.
Currently, minimal teacher training is available in Nepal. We set up demonstration sites for Nepali teachers that model respectful teaching and coaching methods focusing on rich child-centered curricula. The sites will demonstrate that learning by rote memorization can be changed. We aim to implement a strong literacy program that addresses the challenge of learning both English and Nepali. In addition, we encourage teachers to integrate their curriculum and model how using simple materials and approaches can bring the historical richness of Nepal into their classrooms.
Our goal is to create long term sustainable change by empowering a cadre of Nepali teachers to become leaders, teacher trainers/staff developers, and mentors. In order to build a strong local capacity, we set up an intensive mentoring program following each workshop so that every Nepali teacher can mentor and support each other. Nepali teachers, themselves, will become the models and the mentors for their peers, thus enabling Tara Education to reach out to a vast network of Nepali schools.
OUR GOALS
- To develop one non-profit village school and one urban government school into model schools designed for teacher training with model classrooms. Sites will be centers to foster creative, collaborative and sustainable training for Nepali teachers.
- To implement side-by-side coaching, a professional development strategy, whereby the trainer and the classroom teacher plan curriculum together and work cooperatively in the classroom.
- To develop local capacity. Nepali teachers will gain the skills to be models and mentors to their peers. Every teacher trained will train at least one teacher to create long-term exponential results, thus enabling Tara to reach out to a network of schools.
- To create “balanced literacy” addressing the challenge for students to learn both English and Nepali simultaneously.
- To emphasize an integrated curriculum using available classroom resources and recycled objects for project work. Topics to incorporate are Nepal’s past and present history/culture, science, math, and the arts.
- To offer models of teaching practices that can improve the way teachers are prepared in college and university before entering the educational field.
ABOUT TARA EDUCATION
Tara Education was founded and is led by two experienced staff developers, Mary Mckenna and Lisa Howard.
Mary Mckenna has a Ph. D from the University of Michigan and has spent the last 23 years as a teacher, school system administrator and staff developer/teacher trainer in public and private colleges. Most recently, she directed the Bank Street College of Education Professional Development Project in Nepal.
Lisa Howard has worked as a teacher and staff developer/teacher trainer in public and private schools for 14 years. She has a M.S. in Early Childhood and Elementary Education and M.Ed. in Leadership in Education from Bank Street College. She completed her thesis on curriculum integration in Nepal.
Tara Education is working with Nepali partners- The Nepal Education Support Trust (NEST) and the Prajwal School. The Prajwal School is a non-profit community school founded on the values of social and educational inclusion and is located in a village near Hetauda in Nepal. Tara Education is currently working with the Prajwal School to become a model school and teacher training center.
CONTACT TARA EDUCATION
Tara Education US
4 Peter Cooper Road,
4th Floor, New York,
NY 10010
Tel: 212-477-2904
*Email: Lisa Howard lhoward@taraeducation.org
Mary Mckenna mmckenna@taraeducation.org
Tara Education Nepal
Rajendra Malla
GPO Box # 2832
Kathmandu, Nepal
Mobile: 984 122 3924