How and where to begin? We came out here not really knowing what to expect but with our limited experience of Ladakhi schools firmly in mind. Yet Shamrock has proved to be totally unexpected. The school was set up some 8 years ago by two businessmen, using an ex-hotel here in Lakeside. Neither of them lives in Nepal but both try to visit annually. The school, meanwhile, is run by a splendid ex Sergeant-Major called Michael who is headmaster, manager, surrogate grandfather and DIY genius!
Andy, with whom we travelled here, works as a facilitator and resultant with global companies in Europe and the Middle East, and visits regularly to deliver teacher-training to the staff, many of whom are ex-students, either studying for their A level equivalents or in university locally; other staff have degrees, even Masters, but none is a qualified teacher with the equivalent to a PGCE or BEd.
Our role here is more in the role of teacher-trainers (yes, really!), than teaching a specific subject – although I’m quite sure we’ll find ourselves filling in here and there. We have just spend 4 days engaged in team-building and lesson planning, focussing on visual, auditory and kinaesthetic activities to reinforce learning, as well as observing lessons and giving feed-back. It’s been pretty intensive but most of the staff are responding well and the pupils are loving the more interactive lessons! (They are used to ‘chalk and talk’ and rote learning from the extremely prescriptive year text books.)
There are currently 48 children in the school which is fully boarding. They do all the cleaning, take it in turns to help with cooking the evening meal and do their own laundry in the river – all this on top of a full day’s lessons! (See the first photo below.) They are absolutely brilliant and truly inspirational!
The amazing thing here is that the pupils (who are all bright) pay nothing – even the uniforms are provided, plus boarding. The vision is truly inspiring and the success has been proved by those who have gone to university etc.
The school really does provide a ladder out of the poverty trap as some of the children come from illiterate homes and are of the lower/lowest castes.
The school runs like clockwork (or a military operation!) under Michael’s caring supervision, ably helped by the student teachers who live in. As several of them have been through the Shamrock experience, they know the system inside out and but most contribute nothing; the school is funded entirely by the founders, together with contributions from a few donors, but 5 of the children are directly funded by individuals currently. However, finance has become a real problem, with a shortfall of £1600 for the next two months. With running costs of £38K approx per year currently (and that’s with costs pared down to the bare minimum viz meat and fruit only twice a week etc.), the school may well not be able to open for the new school year, so we are desperately seeking donors and backers prepared to commit to regular financial support of any sort. If any of you are interested, or have any bright ideas for millionaires we could approach, please have a look at the Shamrock website: http://www.shamrockeducationtrust.org
We firmly believe that this is an amazing school which is worth fighting to save. Pupils who have been through the ‘Shamrock experience’ are now at university in India, Nepal, Japan, Germany, Malaysia and Denmark, with a current student-teacher waiting to go to university in Australia. We’ve already decided that we will be returning here to continue supporting the great work that goes on herein any way we can; it really is worth backing.
