We did it again. Roughly 95% of our students’ parents attended our parents’ meeting today. That kind of attendance rate is unheard of in most schools in the West, let alone in a government school in Nepal.

How do we do it?

• inform the students about the meeting repeatedly during assemblies running up to the meeting;
• send out two letters of invitation;
• all teachers phone the parents to personally invite them;
• hold the meeting at 7.30am, before parents go to work;
• and maybe, just maybe its because the parents now believe this is a school worth visiting and our teachers are worth coming to talk to.

I should add – to call it a parents’ meeting is not accurate. We use the term, ‘guardians’ meeting’, because many of our students do not live with their parents, many are child domestic workers who live with someone else, many come with the older brother or sister, or some other relative. Some come alone.