From Headmaster to the Himalayas

It was lovely to hear from former King’s School Headmaster, Tim Keyes (Hon OV) and John Walton (former Deputy Head of King’s St Alban’s) about their latest visit to Nepal as part of their role as Trustees of the Himalayan Trust UK, which aims to improve education and health provision in a remote and mountainous district of NE Nepal.

On their most recent trip in November 2022, Tim and John took a party of 10 people to support and encourage the work of the two Nepali NGOs who are responsible for delivering the education and health programmes agreed with HTUK. It was a very successful trip.

Tim added, “November is a great time to visit northern Nepal: a bit like the best sort of English summer with no rain! Our trip involved some very bumpy jeep rides and a great deal of walking up and down big hills, but we were able to visit 14 schools and a number of health posts. Despite the challenges of continuing education during COVID, we were delighted to find that all the schools had made progress since our last visit in 2019 and that our core purpose of training teachers to be more child-friendly (with all the good things that result from that: high attendance, quality of education, achieving of good results, career opportunities) was well on track.

“The highlights were the community celebrations that formed part of our welcome in places where we had been involved in building or replacing classrooms (one school had been badly damaged in a landslide) or, in one case, greatly improving the facilities and safety of a boarding hostel for girls. When you see how good teaching can be in a school with no electricity and minimal resources, you realise that at the heart of good education is the relationship between teachers and pupils.”