Interview with Dipak Tuladhar
Founder of Modern Newa English School

Dipak Tuladhar is a veteran Kathmandu entrepreneur who believes that progress
is possible only through preservation of heritage. He juggles time between Modern
Newa English School that he established in 2003AD and his business ventures
that include Asian Crafts (a handicraft export company with showroom and office
in Durbar Marg) and Him Tours (P) LTD (a travel agency that offers tour packages
all throughout the kingdom of Nepal). Ever since the establishment of the school,
Mr. Tuladhar has been working relentlessly towards increasing awareness of the
urgency to preserve Nepalbhasa among the well-off Newah community of Kathmandu.
He believes that the effort to preserve Nepalbhasa has to begin with children
as they have a higher aptitude towards learning languages. He also believes
that being multi-lingual provides a tremendous moral and confidence boost to
a child.

Could you please provide a brief introduction about Modern Newa English School?

Nepal is a multilingual country with more than 70 different spoken languages,
most of which, however, are sadly disappearing. Many children, especially in
urban areas, Kathmandu to be particular, do not have opportunities to learn
in their own mother languages at schools. Moreover, Nepalbhasa being associated
with the cultural heritage of Kathmandu valley, is being spoken less and less,
especially among the young generation, and is on the verge of being distinct
if no drastic steps are taken. So feeling the urgency of making an active effort
to preserve our language, and recognizing that the seeds for such an effort
should be planted with children, we conducted a pre-survey/research on the practicality
of establishing such a school in the year 2002 AD and with encouragements from
few eager friends we established the school in 2003 AD.

Children, by nature have high aptitudes and flexibility towards languages; they
can pick up new words and sounds much better than an adult. Currently, we teach
the children in Nepalbhasa, Nepali as well as English through innovative teaching
mediums so as to engage them in a rigorous learning environment where children
can participate actively in their learning process. Once the children learn
effectively, they will be well educated. Currently we have 100 children and
14 staff.

There are a lot of parents who actually think having their children
learn Nepalbhasa would hinder the children’s English and Nepali vocabulary
growth, and such they would grow to become less competitive with other children.
How can you assure those parent that their children can be as good as any other
students and even better?

Yes in the beginning a lot of parents were skeptical about teaching their children
Nepalbhasa. Lot of them still believe that speaking Nepalbhasa would create
problems for their children later on while learning English or Nepali. Moreover,
there is sort of a weakness among many Newahs, especially among teenagers, when
it comes to thinking about how Nepalbhasa is perceived by non-Newah people.
For example, when a teenager speaks non-Newah language among his or her peers
with a Newah accent, he or she is often criticized derisively. The teenager
tends to allow this to enter his or her psyche and develops a fear of being
criticized even when speaking Nepalbhasa. Parents, at the same time, fearing
this reprisal in the future, often tend to believe that their children are better
off not learning Nepalbhasa to adjust to the changing society.

From our research and experience, however, we have come to know that as children
tend to have a higher aptitude towards learning languages—the more language
they are able to master the better is their confidence and personality development.
Also, with the power of having learnt their own language, they are able to identify
more with their surrounding and able to understand and absorb their culture
better. We have been successful in demonstrating this and now parents are becoming
more and more confident that their kids are actually at an advantage learning
Nepalbhasa.



What are the other problems that you encounter in your experience of running
this school so far?

In the beginning government support was very discouraging. They actually went
to such length so as to cause disturbances. We struggled even before starting
the school to keep the idea of establishing the school afloat. However, with
time the government has grown supportive. Now, it has decent policies and has
even inventory of free printed textbooks. Overall, we are optimistic about government
support.

How much has the political disturbance affected the daily school
routine?

Political disturbances actually don’t really affect our daily routine.
If there is a Nepal band we usually conduct substitute classes on a weekend
to make up. Yes it might be a little bit inconvenient…no one can really
stop people who work, can they?

What kind of teaching techniques and technologies do you employ?

We believe in innovative curriculum and in employing technologically advanced
tools available in teaching, hence, the name “Modern Newa…”
We have tried to equip the classrooms with modern equipments and technology
that we can afford, and also provide children with the opportunity to learn
while having fun in activities-oriented facilities such as game rooms, etc.
Periodically we take children to excursions such as to the zoo. At the same
time we provide education about culture and festivals through events such as
“Yomari Puni celebration” etc.

What plans do you have for the school towards expanding your efforts
in preserving Nepalbhasa?

Firstly, we would like to make the school fully self-sufficient and be able
to increase the number of students so that we won’t have to close admission
applications, as we had to do last year. We plan on opening an investment fund
to support the growth of the school.

In the future we plan to open schools in other regions that have significant
Newah population, such as Kirtipur, Bungamati, etc. Also, we envision a school
up to college level.

What do you think we - the Newah people - should do as a community
about preserving and developing our mother language, culture and tradition?

The first thing to do is not to hesitate to speak our language with our children
at home and encourage them to learn Nepalbhasa. Also, we need to start speaking
Nepalbhasa during get-togethers, in addition to doing research and making public
as much material about our language, culture and tradition as possible…all
these efforts will go a long way.