SHERIG NEWS VOL. 18 No. 4 WINTER 2014 1

Ama Wäger will remain in the hearts of Tibetans

The Department of Education of the Cen-tral Tibetan Administration has expressed deep sadness at the passing away of Ama Irmtraut Wäger on 2 Oct. 2014 at the age of 95 in Munich. Her legacy will be remem-bered in the hearts of Tibetans all over the world.She had served as chairperson of German Aid to Tibetans since 1983, which has led an outstanding mission for the education and welfare of Tibetans in exile.In 2006, His Holiness the Dalai Lama con-ferred her with the International Campaign for Tibet’s Light of Truth award for her “outstanding contribution to public under-standing of Tibet and its current plight”.CST Kalimpong Celebrates Golden Jubilee

Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay and Education Kalon Ngodup Tsering of the Central Tibet-an Administration graced the golden jubilee celebration of CST Kalimpong on 8th Octo-ber 2014. Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay was the chief guest while Kalon Ngodup Tsering and State MLA Dr Harka Bahadur Chettri were guests of honor on the occasion.

SHERIG NEWSQUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

CENTRAL TIBETAN ADMINISTRATION

Vol.18; No.4

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Workshop ----------------------3

Teacher Training/Meeting --4

School Inspection ------------5

Counseling News ------------5

Scholarship News -----------6

Publication News-------------6

Advisor: Ngodup Tsering(Kalon for Education)

Topgyal Tsering(Education Secretary)

EditorTsering Dhondup(Science Education Officer)

Mailing CoordinatorTsering Yangkyi

WINTER 2014

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Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay, in his address highlighted the indispensable service ren-dered by the teachers and staff of the school for the education of Tibetan children in the last 50 years. He also expressed his gratitude to the Indian government and people for their support to the Tibetan people.

Education Kalon Ngodup Tsering, in his ad-dress spoke about the need to preserve the Tibetan language and called for non-govern-mental organizations in the area to initiate activities to boost Tibetan language profi-ciency.He also underscored the prioritization of education by the 14th Kashag and apprised the public about the various scholarship schemes rolled out by the Education Depart-ment.Education Kalon visits Tibetan Schools in Northeast India

Mr. Ngodup Tsering, Kalon for Education De-partment, Central Tibetan Administration visited a series of Tibetan schools in north-eastern India including CST Ravangla, former

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Department of EducationCentral Tibetan AdministrationGangchen KyishongDharamsala 176215District KangraHimachal Pradesh. INDIAEmail: education@tibet.netTel: (01892) 222572, 222721Fax: (01892) 223481

About us…

Sherig News is the official newsletter of the Depart-ment of Education, one of the seven departments of the Central Tibetan Administra-tion based in Dharamsala since 1960. DoE is the apex body responsible for provid-ing support for the educa-tional and welfare needs of over 22,000 Tibetan refugee children in India and Nepal.

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Thumi Sambhota School Gangtok, STS Pokhriabong, CST Darjeeling and CST Sonada.He addressed the students and the teachers in all the five schools and emphasized the importance of educa-tion, preservation of Tibetan language, upholding ethi-cal values and good health.Education Kalon expressed his special appreciation of the Indian teachers who have been teaching Tibetan students for years on and produced many great leaders such as the Sikyong, the Speaker and the Chief Justice Commissioner of CTA. He also spoke on the significance and implementation of Basic Education Policy (BEP) for Tibetans in Exile and various programs of DoE like Teacher Professional Development (TPD) and Early Grade Reading (EGR) to improve reading skill of early grade students. He has expressed about the gratitude of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibetan people and 2014 is being celebrated as the year of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.He also visited ITBCI School Kalimpong, Tibetan old people’s home Kalimpong, the Tibetan Settlement Of-fices, Tibetan Refugees Self-Help Centre in Darjeeling and Tibetan Co-operative Society in Sonada.Petoen School paid tribute to Samdhong Rinpoche: Education Kalon attended the function

Mewoen Tsuglag Petoen School, a model school es-tablished by the Education Department, CTA, celebrat-ed the 75th birthday of former Kalon Tripa Samdong Rinpoche on 5th Nov. 2014 as a tribute to his tireless efforts to boost Tibetan education.Education Kalon Ngodup Tsering, chief guest at the cel-ebration, addressed the audience underlining the need to preserve Tibetan language and culture. He explained that “the two main challenges towards language preservation are: government intervention through repressive policies, and individual apathy to-wards studying the language.” Currently Tibetan lan-guage is facing both threats as Tibetans inside Tibet are under a repressive Chinese policy and Tibetans in exile are giving less importance to the Tibetan language, he said and urged Tibetans to focus on Tibetan language.

Education Kalon visits Tibetan Schools in Uttarakhand

Education Kalon Ngodup Tsering visited Tibetan schools in the Northern Indian state of Uttarakhand from 25 October – 1 November.He visited Sambhota Tibetan School, Dekyiling, TCV Se-lakui and Sambhota Tibetan School, Paonta, from 26 – 28 October and addressed the staff and students of the schools.He advised the students to ask more questions to the teachers so that the teachers come to the class well prepared. The students were also told to set higher aims in their lives. He also spoke on the significance and implementation of the Basic Education Policy (BEP) for Tibetans in exile and various other programs of the Education Department like Teacher Professional Devel-opment (TPD) and Early Grade Reading (EGR) to im-prove the professional skill of teachers and the reading skill of early grade students respectively.Kalon Ngodup Tsering attended SPARKE conference or-ganized by SOIR-IM at the Songtsen Library, near Deky-iling on 29 October. In his keynote address, he talked about corporal punishment being practiced in schools and explored measures to address it. He also spoke on the universal ethics, role of teachers and students, to develop kindness and compassion in school education. He expressed his gratitude to SOIR-IM for its continu-ous support towards the development of Tibetan com-munity in India.Kalon visited Tibetan Homes Foundation School, Mus-soorie, THF Rajpur and Tibetan Nehru Memorial Foun-dation School, Clement Town from 30 October to 1 No-vember. During his visits, he took part in various school activities and interacted with the staff and teachers of these schools.Education Kalon attended World Hindu Congress Conference Kalon for the Department of Education of the Central Tibetan Administration, Mr. Ngodup Tsering, has at-tended the World Hindu Congress Conference on 21-23, Nov. 2014 on behalf of Sikyong Dr. Lobsang Sangay

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to represent CTA. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and India’s top leadership, including ruling Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, cabinet ministers Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani and Nirmala Sitharaman, were also present at the inaugural session of the World Hindu Congress. 5th Dialectics Symposium for School Students

The 5th symposium on dialectics for students was held at Upper TCV School, Dharamsala from 29th Sept. to 4th Oct. 2014.There were 110 student participants escorted by 18 religious teachers. The participating schools were from STSS, TCV, CTSA and SLF schools. The inaugural ceremony was graced by Sikyong Dr. Lob-sang Sangay and other dignitaries present were Educa-tion Kalon Mr. Ngodup Tsering, Education Secretary Mr. Topgyal Tsering and officials from TCV. During the 6 day long dialectics symposium, students debated and dis-cussed on various topics on Tibetan Language, Science, Mathematics and Social Science. Service Award for School Staff - 2014 The service award for the year 2014 conferred by the Department of Education, CTA, to 39 school teachers and staff who have completed 25 years of sincere ser-vice in the schools. The recipients are as follows:- Migmar, Tsering Dolma Sonam, Tsering Chozom, Ra-manuj Kumar and Naga; CST Kollegal: Narsingh Thakur, and T. Venkateshwarlu; CST CVP Bylakuppe: Gopal

Singh; CST Miao: Bhubneshwar Prasad Baloni; CST Mussoorie: Rekha Gupta; TNMF School Clementtown: Tsering Paldon; TCV Gopalpur: Kalsang Phuntsok, Tser-ing Dolma, Tenzin Dolma and Pema Wangyal; TCV La-dakh: Wangchuk; LTCV Dharamsala: SonamWoser; TCV Kullu: Phuntsok Choedhen; TCV Entrepreneurship: Tashi Tsomo and Tseten Dorjee; UTCV Dharamsala: Tsering Dolker; TCV Bylakuppe: Madhu Pant; CST Her-bertpur: Rajendar Kumar; CST Herbertpur: A Varath-araja Perumal; CST Kalimpong: Choejor Sangmo and Tsering Yangchen; STS Puruwala: Tsering Palden; STS Pokhriabong: Tsering Wangmo Zongpa and Benny Ku-rian; CST Mundgod: SP Singh, PK Misra, G Panigrahy and PN Murty; CST Chandragiri: V Shunmugam, S May-akrishnan and BM Mahadevaiah; CST Gurupura: Lekh Nath Humagain; NHSS Nepal: and Lok Kumar Shrestha; Mt. Everest School, Nepal.WORKSHOP Early Grade Reading Workshop-II

The Department of Education, Central Tibetan Admin-istration, has organized a workshop on ‘Early Grade Reading-II’ in Dharamshala from 3 – 6 Oct.2014.These workshops are being conducted under the Early Grade Reading Project as per the recommendations of the Education Advisory Committee (EAC) meeting held in June 2013. The committee has felt the need of creat-ing strong early reading program to make children self readers when they reach grade 3.The project is being funded by USAID through the Tibet Fund.2th Early Grade Readings Translator’s Workshop The Department of Education has organized a three day workshop for the translators from 22nd to 24th Oct, 2014 at Nyatri Hall.This workshop was the follow up of the first workshop held in August 2014. The whole three days were spent on translating some of the selected Children’s litera-ture.A total of 5 picture story books from Eklavya founda-tion were translated into Tibetan language under the mentorship of Dr. Latika Gupta, Mr. Tenzin Dhargyal,

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Education Specialist, Tibet Fund and DoE Deputy Sec-retary Mr. Sonam Sangpo. These five books would be sent to printing as soon as the review committee approves the translation. The books would be very soon distributed to all Tibetan schools for their classroom reading corner.The project aims to strengthen the reading compre-hension of the children by producing more children’s story books in Tibetan Language and empowering the primary teachers with the art of storytelling. The 9 translators formed their own social network group so that they could always keep in touch regard-ing the EGR translation works. They would be soon translating more books individually for this project. The project is funded by USAID through The Tibet Fund.The First Cluster Level Workshop on Early Grade Read-ing at Bangaluru

The first cluster level workshop was being conducted at the Dalai Lama Institute of Higher Education, Ban-galore, in two batches for 53 primary teachers of the Tibetan Schools in South India. The first Batch of 28 teachers was given 5-day workshop from 21 to 25 De-cember. The second batch of 25 teachers has attended the workshop from 26-30 December.The teachers were called from schools under CTSA, STSS and TCV. The resource person for the workshop was Dr. Latika Gupta from Delhi University.A series of cluster level workshops on Early Grade Reading will be provided in 2015 to cover all the pri-

mary teachers of Tibetan Schools in our effort to im-prove professional growth of teachers of young learn-ers (Class I – V).The Education Department of the Central Tibetan Ad-ministration has so far provided three such Workshops for 70 Primary school teachers. These workshops were funded by USAID through Tibet Fund.TEACHER TRAINING/MEETINGTraining for Spiritual and Cultural Teachers

A group of 5 monks and a nun were given an intensive training course for school Spiritual and Cultural teach-ers from 4th Nov. to 18th Dec. 2014 at CHTS, Sarah. The main subjects covered in this training were student's interest based teaching of Buddhist philosophy and di-alectics, Tibetan Grammar, Child Psychology, Basic Edu-cation Policy(BEP), Special Education, School Adminis-tration, Basic Computer Education and Calligraphy. Riglam Textbook Review Meeting

As per the BEP curriculum framework, Riglam Textbook Revision for class VI to XII was initiated from 2012. Ac-cordingly, a three day Riglam textbook review meeting with its committee members along with two textbook editors was held from 18th to 20th November, 2014 at CHTS, Sarah. The entire textbook from class VI to XII has been finalized and will be published in next year.Social Science Textbook Review Meeting A three day meeting was held at Nyatri hall, Gangchen Kyishong from 26th to 28th Oct, 2014 to revise and finalize the draft of class III and V social science text-book. The committee members screened the contents