Excerpt from

29 September 2002

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Sherpa dream fades before lure of lucre
Renu Kshetry
Khumjung, September 28
Dawa Tenzing is considered a very bright student in Khumjung School, where the youngster studies. Yet he pleaded sick and didn't appear for the School Leaving Certificate examination. Actually, there was nothing wrong with him. He was busy making a fast buck by helping trekking guides.
Tenzing is not alone in this. Several boys do the same thing to eke out a living. As a result, every year the school experiences fluctuating attendance and the anguish of seeing bright students not performing as well as they should. Though his teachers had high hopes about Tenzing, when the teen ultimately managed to sit for the exam, he could only get a second division.
Especially after the Dashain vacation, the classes will be half-empty as most of the students will be busy helping out with trekking and mountaineering expeditions.
"How can we expect good results when the students think of making money!" complained Mahendra Bahadur Kathet, school principal.
"Earlier, things were different. The students worked hard and got plenty of opportunities to go abroad for further studies."
Khumjung School, perched on a height of 3,790 m, is a two-hour walk from Namche Bazaar. It was founded by Sir Edmund Hillary in 1960, as a way of expressing his indebtedness to the Sherpas.
When he asked the then VDC chairman Wanchu Sherpa what he could do to help the people, Sherpa answered: "Our children have eyes but still they are blind."
So Sir Edmund helped build a school with teachers recruited from Darjeeling in India. But was Sherpa's dream fulfilled?
Shera Jyangmo, a ninth grader at Khumjung who recently returned from a 15-day tour to Japan, said, "There is nothing wrong in working during vacations as such opportunities do not come twice. It affects studies, true, but money does matter. After all, we are studying to be financially independent, aren't we?"
"The trend is so bad that students who don't get holiday job opportunities become frustrated and neglect their education," said Shambu Bastola, a teacher.
There are exceptions of course. Temba Phuru Sherpa of Pemboche, who used to study in Kathmandu, returned to Khumjung School because of financial problems. He still wants to study.
"I do not want to step into the shoes of my father, who is a trekking guide cum porter," he said. "I wish to become a doctor."
It is not that people here do not know the value of education. But the reality is so harsh that the first priority is survival.
"It becomes very hard to convince a 13-year-old about the benefits of education. An expensive dress and money mean more. He does not want to waste his time studying," said Achamma Singh Rai, another teacher.
The school has a reputation of producing good students. The first batch includes professionals like doctors, pilots and businessmen.
Presently, it has 350 students and 15 teachers. This year, it came up with a cent per cent result. Twelve students appeared in the SLC exam and five of them passed in the first division, the rest in the second.
The school provides free education and stationery thrice a year. There is also a hostel.