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Many teachers, particularly in cities, are present at an academic institution only during the time of their classes, and work at several other institutions. In this process, they spend considerable time commuting on motorcycles. Thus the phrase ‘helmet teachers’ (wearing a helmet is mandatory in Nepal) is commonly used to refer to teachers who teach part-time at several institutions. 

Many of us have encountered such ‘helmet-teachers’ who are all unique in their own way, largely in terms of their orientation to teaching and learning. We have also heard diverse opinions about these helmet teachers, ranging from ‘they are money minded individuals’ to ‘they are the soul of higher education’. Sushil Kumar Pant in “Innovations in Nepali College Classrooms: The Experiences of a Helmet Teacher” captures these sentiments by arguing that the phrase ‘Helmet Teacher’ is often associated with teachers who are not committed to their profession. He also draws attention to several innovative classroom practices of these helmet teachers including case studies, internships, project and thesis work, seminars, audio-visual aids, article reviews, and reflection journals in teaching-learning engagement. 

Helmet teaching results from the way our education system is organized. Underlying the phenomenon is the belief that teaching and learning can be accomplished in a 45 to 60-minute classroom where the instructor is the purveyor of some curriculum based knowledge and students the passive recipients of that knowledge. Although some helmet teachers might be innovative, as Pant suggests, helmet teaching hardly supports important aspects of teaching-learning, like building a strong teacher-student relationship, encouraging active learning, giving prompt and adequate feedback and accommodating and respecting diverse ways of learning. 

An economic lens offers a clearer view of the phenomenon. Most teachers in Nepal are paid based on the time they spend in classrooms (or the number of classes they take, or the number of courses completed). As the pay at most educational institutions is minimal, teachers can make only so much income from one institution. So they need to work at several institutions. 

Economic benefits being their key incentive, helmet teachers want to maximize their income by scheduling classes at two institutions with little time in between. Considering the traffic situation in Nepali cities, particularly Kathmandu, the commute time is unpredictable. Many times the teachers arrive late in the classroom, and at other times they cannot come at all. Retrospectively, as teaching-learning in Nepal is largely limited to the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, this process is severely impacted when the teacher or the knowledge provider is absent. 

The economic struggles of teachers are not limited to Nepal though. In many parts of the world, teaching is not a lucrative job. For examples, in the US teachers take a second or even a third job to make ends meet, a phenomenon called ‘moonlighting’. Both ‘helmet teaching’ and ‘moonlighting’ illuminate the need to provide teachers with a decent income. 

We see helmet teaching as an important issue that calls for immediate attention because of its cyclical nature and manifold impacts. At the micro level, the most prominent and immediate impact of helmet teaching is that it deprives students of engaged, holistic learning and limits them to simply meeting curricular requirements. At the meso level, these teachers are part of or lead academic institutions and run the risk of transferring the same values to their students, making it an inter-generational problem. And at the macro level, helmet teaching even impacts educational policies. 

We understand educational policies as a product of the experiences of educators and concurrent discussions on education. In an education system that values helmet teaching and undervalues holistic learning, educational policies are unlikely to transcend this limited understanding. 

Educational institutions should take the lead in establishing the value of the teaching and learning process. They are the ones that should expand teaching-learning from the confinements of the syllabus and incorporate its other values like research and skill-development. Students too can contribute to changing the teaching-learning culture by being active participants in the process, not relying completely on teachers, and going beyond the syllabus and examination scores to incorporate career goals and life skills. 

If the majority of teachers practice teaching-learning engagement as adding value to life’s purposes, and academic institutions strive to prepare students for life by facilitating skill development—rather than preparing them for exams and decent grades and educational policies can be made context-specific and holistic, helmet teaching would be an obsolete phenomenon. 

Dahal is a PhD scholar in Social Work at Boston College, the US. Dhamala is an Assistant Professor of English at Ratna Rajya Laxmi Campus, Nepal.

There are many ways in which China and Nepal can sustainably co-operate and boost trade both ways. Healing herbs have always been a major export from Nepal’s mountain areas, especially the Karnali. Nepal needs to regulate the trade and give back the benefits of this trade to local communities. Right now, it requires a license to harvest the herbs. Indian businessmen who pay for the license can legally harvest while the locals can be prosecuted for picking herbs from their own forests. This system must be dismantled and greater autonomy given to locals to steward and sustainably harvest their own forest resources. 

China’s traditional healing herbs and medicines are world-class, and Nepal can learn a lot from them. Our government should request the Chinese government to provide an exchange program which trains people in acupuncture techniques as well as traditional Chinese herbs so we can give low-cost traditional herbal alternatives to our people. Following a gruesome injury, I have gone to an acupuncturist and experienced first hand the wellbeing that comes from acupuncture. I have also seen people with paralysis and other life-crippling events recover in this healing center. 

China and Nepal should also work on ecological tourism, in which people are taught about the benefits of maintaining wild areas and wildlife. Without our forests and animals, we will not survive for long. Nature can do without humans, but humans cannot do without nature. We need to understand this and work towards rebuilding mixed forests which give importance to old growth trees. 

The trees of Kathmandu have been decimated, killing thousands of old growths in road expansion programs. We faced the consequences of those actions including an epidemic of dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes.

Everyone from the Mayor to our most valued doctor Sanduk Ruit came down with this disease. The mosquito’s natural predators, including dragonflies, birds and bats, all live in green areas, and with cement and asphalt everywhere, Kathmandu is prime “real estate” for mosquitoes to breed in. We know the wages of ecological sin is death, and in current scenario of climate change it might quickly become mass death unless the environment is given top priority. 

Kathmandu needs to reforest itself quickly, and that means picking the right species of hardwood tree (not the tropical palm trees that the government quickly planted along President Xi’s route from the airport). Of course a two year old tree will never exhale the thousands of tons of oxygen a stand of century-old old growth trees give out, but at least it would be a start towards thinking about a more sustainable city. 

China should think about how it could support Asian cities to re-green, not just concretize. Concrete is turning out to be an unviable material due to the way we have recklessly destroyed mountains for lime and riverbeds for sand. China should also conduct research on green building materials which are sustainable and which do not harm the environment. 

The one area in which Nepal could support China is in helping it adopt its very successful community forestry model. Nepal has been in the news as one of few countries where the total landmass of forests is increasing. This is not just due to mass migration of people from villages into cities (although that is a factor), but also because of an extremely successful community forestry program that been operational since the late 1970s. Late King Birendra’s “Hariyo Ban, Nepal Ko Dhan” (Green Forests are Nepal’s Wealth) program was instrumental in this reforestation in Nepal. 

As the global economy slows down due to the disruptions of climate, there has to be new ways to think about creating prosperity. The old model of relentlessly pumping out objects and materials toxic to the environment and harmful to living things has to change, if industries and economies are to survive. 

China can play a key role in this moment. It has the capacity to quickly shift to new, green materials, as it has shown with its manufacture and adoption of electric vehicles which outnumber those in Western economies. China’s solar industries are the best in the world, and Nepal should also court solar power and electric vehicle support to Nepal, not just focus on stalled hydropower. We should lobby for a government exchange program in which Nepali engineers are trained in solar and EV technologies in China.

President Xi’s visit was a prestigious moment for Nepal, for whom both its giant neighbors are equally important. We were honored. Our cultural and historical ties are long, and will last through the ages. We should use this moment to think about long-term benefits for both to help the two citizens survive the turbulence of planetary and economic changes . 

This is the third and concluding part of the author’s three-part article on Nepal-China ties
 

There’s talk about “people to people exchange.” This is never entirely defined, other than in tourism. As a writer and filmmaker, I also want the Nepal government to formalize some agreement on intellectual copyright issues. How can Nepalis translate and get their works published in China with legal protection—other than by going through the circuitous route of an American or Western literary agency, which is currently the only option? How can we show our films in China in a way that makes it profitable for both sides? Currently there are no formal agreements between Nepal and China on intellectual property rights in books, films and music. This is something we should think about, as our young filmmakers are increasingly making better films and music videos. We should also be able to compensate the filmmakers in China by watching their films on the big screen, and not just on pirated DVDs.

A government exchange program which takes teams of Nepali filmmakers to China to expose them to their world-class filmmaking industry, including on short-term training programs, would be extremely welcome.

For women and young people all over the world, the viability of the planet and its survival has become a huge concern. China is a major emitter of greenhouse gases. Nepal must definitely raise this issue, including ways in which China could phase out coal and shift to clean energy. With global warming, we are losing our glaciers and Himalayan rivers. About 1.3 billion people (Nepalis and Indians) depend on these rivers for drinking water, irrigation and livelihood. They are also sacred to Hindus. We cannot afford to lose these rivers. What can China do to offset its carbon footprint so that we can slow down and stall the melting of the glaciers?

This brings me to plastic. China has long depended on the plastic industry to boost its exports and create the new wealth which has uplifted its population. However, plastic can no longer be the material on which China builds its prosperity. Plastic’s impact on people, animals, birds and all living creatures is now well-known. We are being inundated with this material which neither biodegrades nor provides any value to soil, air and water, other than causing their desecration. China has to move away from plastic as its backbone, and look for new materials that ideally nourish the soil and air, or at least do not cause harm. It has already stopped the import of plastic waste from America and other countries, citing pollution. Now it needs to stop the manufacture of plastic, and quickly reinvest in new green options to stay ahead in the plastic alternative game.

I was at my local shop the other day when a young teenager walked up with one of those disposable coffee containers ubiquitous in the West, but which we hadn’t seen in Nepal so far. Now with Chinese goods being sold through websites, we are seeing these lethal objects in Nepal. The only way to dispose of these single-use plastic containers is to incinerate them. This contributes to Kathmandu’s deathly pollution, as well as to the region’s global warming. This has to stop, on both a moral and ethical level. This is not development or prosperity. This is madness. We are destroying our future generations when we choose these materials as our base.

In addition, there are several points of disagreements which Nepal as a democratic country has with China. We cannot support the kind of state-endorsed surveillance commonplace in China. People should not be monitored by these surveillance programs—this is a fundamental violation of people’s rights to privacy. These surveillance technology are now commonplace in Hong Kong as well, which is alarming.

China must resolve its differences with Hong Kong peaceably, including respecting the terms and conditions with which Hong Kong was handed over by the British. In addition, Nepal cannot support China’s treatment of the Uighurs. These programs of coercion and indoctrination must end, and programs which encourage Uighur youths to start small businesses and move away from radicalization must be put in place instead.

Also Nepal cannot support any program of extradition which may affect Tibetans. Tibetans who came as refugees are one of Nepal’s most hardworking communities, tirelessly bringing in the foreign exchange through the many entrepreneurial ventures that they run. The biggest export from Nepal to China may be Tibetan hand-knotted carpets. Tibetan Buddhist teachers run religious institutions and give lectures on Buddhism which also attract many international visitors, including many from mainland China. Nepal, as a country dependent on tourism, sees them as a valuable part of national life, not just due to their contribution to the economy but especially for their role in keeping alive the Buddha Dharma. They are valued citizens and we cannot put them at risk in any way.

This is the second of a three-part article on Nepal-China relations

There is a lot of talk of infra­structure in Nepal-China dealings, as was the case during President Xi Jinping’s recent Nepal trip. There is the trans-Himalayan railway, a much desired infrastructure project after India’s blockade on Nepal. There are hydropower projects of mega-scope, billions of dollars and thousands of megawatts, in the pipeline. China has always been a big builder of roads in Nepal, and with the BRI this is definitely in the equation. Invest­ment in cement factories is also a big one.As we invest billions of dollars every year on roads that wash away each monsoon, the viability of roads in mountain areas has become even more questionable to me as the years progress. It is clear ropeways, which require much less invasive infrastructure and which can be quickly rebuilt in the case of a natural disaster, has been neglected and wiped off the Nepali policy map for decades.

We need to revive the idea of goods-carrying ropeways, which in the long run may be more sus­tainable and viable than a railway through extremely mountainous areas of Tibet and Nepal. The cost of maintaining a railway would be astronomical. Nepal will be stuck with a White Elephant which takes us more money to maintain than it brings in. There is no doubt the lines would erode over a few win­ter seasons and which may never repaired later, due to Nepal’s lack of trained technicians. A ropeway on the other hand would always be operational, and require mini­mal maintenance.

Our main goal is to bring and take goods, not people, from Chi­na. After I saw a Chinese man in a motorcycle with a Chinese num­ber plate and army costume wan­dering in Dhulikhel, it occurred to me that bringing in people from the border areas might not be such a great idea. We should limit tourism to high end and middle class tourists who come by plane.

Hydropower projects, especial­ly on the mega-scale that China is talking about, is contested for environmental reasons. Nepal has fragile mountains, whose ecology has to be carefully stewarded. Nepal is also a democratic coun­try and it’s not easy to empty habited lands—the lands have to be bought, and with speculators rushing to the proposed sites and buying up land cheaply from vil­lagers, the government is faced with a big gold-rush crowd waiting to cash in on their dividends when the hydropower projects com­mence. This means more costs for Nepal, and which is one of the issues which stall these projects. All of these have to be resolved before the projects can be put in operation.

With global climate change and rivers running dry, the other due diligence that Nepal should do is look at how viable these projects will be in 20 or 30 years, when we may have much less water due to climate change melting our gla­ciers and ending the spring melt which feeds the rivers.

A more viable policy issue to discuss with China in the day of climate change might be better management of Himalayan riv­ers, including ways to ensure their longevity. Also the two countries should discuss the pos­sibilities that those rivers could one day dry up, leaving a lot of highland communities with very little water. How would they sur­vive?

What are indigenous local methods of water conservation which could stall this possibility? How can China support those initiatives so that rivers are con­served on both sides of the bor­der? These sustainable conserva­tion issues should also be on the agenda, although they are not as glamorous as the prospect of a huge hydropower dam.

Nomadic communities on both sides of the border should be able to graze their sheep and yaks in the way they have done for centu­ries. These indigenous people are the stewards of the land, and they know how to keep the ecology in balance. They should be treat­ed with respect and acknowl­edged for their knowledge of stewardship.

This is first of a three-part article on Nepal-China relations