Student Friendly Teaching and Learning Environment: Experiences from Technical Vocational Educational Training Schools in Nepal

The learner friendly atmosphere in the school has been fore grounded by the state while it is equally emphasized by the Technical Vocational Educational Training (TVET) schools in Nepalese context. Thus, this paper aims to exploring the opportunities and challenges the school leaders, teachers, students and parents have been experiencing while creating student- friendly teaching learning atmosphere in TVET schools. In this study, we employed the narrative inquiry and the data were collected by in-depth interview from the participants. Through the collected narratives, it was discovered that, although student- friendly environment in teaching learning has been gaining significant popularity, creating such environment comes up with many challenges like: ambiguous role of facilitators, infrastructural constraints and attitudinal rigidity of individuals towards student- centered teaching learning. However, student-friendly teaching learning environment was recounted to have been constructive in stimulating confidence, creativity, criticality, social spirit and self-reliance among students.


INTRODUCTION
Setting the scene: Drifting from being 'taught' to learning among learners Standing for the first time as a classroom instructor in the year 2007, it was more than a dream coming true. It was the area that I had longed for years, and it was not the dream that I had built for a few days. In fact, it was a vision, a dream of seeing the dreams of hundreds, probably thousands through my eyes; it was a dream of juxtaposition, of carefully handling the hands of the blooming buds and with this, I had even been handling my own dream of saying, 'Yes, I can make it!' which I could rarely make true during the days at my high school.
When I look upon myself these days, two different stages of life: as a student and as a facilitator come to me together and more vividly. Those were the days as a student, striving to move and say, 'I will because I can' that I carried on to make a day of, 'You can and you will', with which I have been able to differentiate between what being a teacher as a teacher and teacher as a facilitator has been! Recounting the experience of working with flashcards, I found it really different from premises where we were used to getting outnumbered. The school where I had pursued my high school had given space to a number of vocational skills as part of academic discourse, and we used to perform a number of activities employing the use of local technology. However, studying in a teacher centered classroom, we used to go through a series of disconnections since expecting rapport with teacher was something unusual, and as discovered by Moldin (2008) as well, most of us found disengagement as an option to avoid the authoritative classrooms with which we ended up not getting to the utmost of academic and social development that was dreamt. But as I started to work as a facilitator in a student-centered school that had incorporated TVET, I had started being more assertive that schools can provide better mechanisms for the learners to transmit values and ideas while classrooms can go beyond mere physical setting for learning to atmosphere for socialization and individual psychological development (Kurdziolek, 2016). Echoed in the words of Orchard (2007), as a facilitator, I started finding ways to apply different pedagogical strategies to address students with different needs in different learning contexts rather than relying solely upon instructional procedure.
And, as expected, I could view the buds blooming elegantly, adding fragrance of self-confidence, self-assertion and self-discipline to the premises that had been viewing the learners making a number of attempts to stay assertive! It is a matter of fact that adhering to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1990), which, in its Article 29 (1) states that education has to be directed on child's personality development and extraction of his/ her potential, assurance of environment for formative child development and participation is identified by the Constitution in Part 3, Article 39 (3)  It provides me with an insight that enhancing technical and vocational domain in learnerfriendly surrounding has been gaining immense popularity in the context of Nepal. Moreover, a growing number of schools incorporating TVET that I have been observing and the rising voice about the need to change classroom models for facilitating students grow as rich trove of knowledge (Kandel, 2018) popping out of daily newspapers encourages me to anticipate growing consciousness in individual, community and nation on making time-friendly changes in educational sphere, making TVET a part of it. Coming to this, however, making absolute claim that we have really taken a magical leap in educational discourse doesn't seem to be satisfactory enough. Living in a nation blessed with diversity, contextual challenges that often appear in the application of student-friendly teaching learning approach in executing TVET are not to be undermined. Similarly, despite rigorous monitoring and evaluation going parallel to the projects like SSDP (MOE, 2016) to determine the developmental outcomes, less investigation on the adversities the TVET schools face appear to be a barrier to the transformational setting we have been dreaming about. Study of the stories of individual creating the progressive practice, grounded upon the question of how the school leaders, teachers, parents and students aligned to TVET programs articulate their experience, hence, carries a greater pertinence since it can make a better exploration of the challenges that might have been hindering the intention of creating student-friendly pedagogical approach as implicit force, getting concealed amidst few of the visible opportunities.
Highlighting the significance of creating mutual teaching learning atmosphere between students and teachers, Cornell and Mayer (2010) articulated that a collaborative community created in the school not only extends to classroom order but it even stimulates safe and supportive school climate that is inextricably linked to learning outcomes. In fact, involving in the pedagogical process of disseminating experiences for years, I have perceived that learning is not merely limited to learning the contents; and it is more about learning the behavior that the individual acquires from the environment through observational learning (Bandura, 1977).
And as I view the pupils around me growing from striving to thriving, I come to an internalization that supportive school environment is more likely to foster learning and growth of the students including the aspects of their social, emotional and ethical development (Usaini, Abubakar & Bichi, 2015). While technology and vocation have become a key concern for many schools emerging at present, the stories of individuals learning in in collaborative atmosphere in TVET school are the stories of opportunities. However, as the Freytag' Pyramid (Griffith, 2006) exhibits, story of an individual does not come as fairy tale all the time since it constitutes of conflicts and enigmas as rising action before it reaches climax of achievement and moves towards resolution.

Student Centered TVET School Environment: Concept and the Context of Nepal
The notion of education a process and learning beyond the pages of books has gained immense popularity in present era. The growing popularity, to a greatest extent aligns to the coining made by John Dewey who puts forward the concept of Student-centered school environment as progressive environment for teaching learning which he considers to be different from militantly structured old schools having teacher as the center of gravity (Dewey, 1915) and where instincts and activities of students are given less space. As Dewey (1915) puts further, progressive schools stand as embryonic form of community, enabling the individual to reconstruct individual experience that he/ she develops in transaction with the community around him/ her through activity which is expressed through his/ her instincts, experience, interests and individuality. Dewey's notion about progressive school even echoes in the words of Khasawneh, Miqdadi, and Hijazi (2014) who note the need of democratic schools in present era where teachers are guided by the principle that what works for one student might not work for another. Renouncing the traditional concept of general intelligence as single entity, teachers in these schools tend to create atmosphere where different cognitive abilities of individual are identified (Gardner, 1983) and teaching learning procedure is made accordingly.
Technical and vocational education as an educational program in the similar regards aims towards equipping people with the technical and professional skills which, by one way or the other aligns with the idea of confronting mere lectures and teacher's engagement (Ansah & Ernest, 2013). This confrontation also reflects in Sikandar (2016)'s connotation to Dewey's progressivism that advocates that learning and development is not merely to be determined by subject matter alone; rather how the teacher plans and connects the subject matter addressing needs, interest and cognitive development of child has to be considered Reflecting upon my engagement with the learners in acquiring vocational skills, I have realized that there is more sharing and collaboration among the individuals which is stated by Vygotsky, 1934(Topciu & Myftiu, 2015Vygotsky, 2007) serves as a social process to encourage them enter in intellectual life, observing the people around them. Expressing a great support to the significance of social processes between adults and children for learning (Arshad & Chen, 2009;Gupta, 2006), the theory talks about the role of social experience in human development (Vygotsky, 1978) which is expected to be eased through the use classroom materials to enhance participatory approach as mediating artifacts (Marginson & Dang, 2016) in executing TVET program in school atmosphere. Talking about how emphasis to TVET in educational practice has embraced the values put forward by Dewey and Vygotsky in the context of Nepal, it might be contextual to recall the great leap we have experienced in the paradigm of distinguishing educational process. Moving from the days of isolation to awakening about necessity for mass literacy and spread of education during 1950s (Nepal National Education Planning Commission [NNEPC], 1956), we seem to have reached to the period where establishment of quality learning environments to enable learning, improving access to quality education and strengthening peer support mechanisms for children has become one of the main focuses of the state (Edinyang, 2016). In fact, as Edinyang (2016) mentions, it allows anticipation that focus on improving the school environment from the national level must have been supported by the notion that children are provided with 'best' atmosphere possible so that they can learn new behaviors by observing others and reproduce them.

Aim of the Study
We aim to explore the opportunities and challenges faced by school leaders, teachers, students and parents, while developing a student-friendly teaching learning environment in TVET schools.

METHODOLOGY
The study was made adopting interpretivism as the paradigm of looking at the discourse of student friendly environment in TVET schools. Since education itself is a social discourse, the research has been guided by the ontological assumption that experience of teachers, students and parents about creating student-friendly teaching learning environment is contextual and subjective which was derived by applying narrative inquiry as method of the study (Cohen & Morrison, 2012). While doing so, a school leader and a student from one while a teacher and a parent from other two different TVET schools were selected as research participants. In this case I made the use of purposive sampling since I had to select the individuals having knowledge and experience about student friendly school environment (Creswell & Clark, 2011).
Furthermore, selection of TVET schools was even influenced by my own experience of working in school incorporating TVET as part of its academics for about five years and the willingness to know how other schools have been experiencing the practice.
Storytelling was used so as to assemble research participants' experience of creating student friendly teaching learning environment at school. Since stories are considered as universal language, stories told by my research participants allowed me to explore the psyche of my research participants and discover what experiencing creating student friendly teachinglearning environment meant to them (Booker, 2011). Parallel to thinking dialogically where I engaged with my research participants in dialogue through conversational action, reaction, and interaction (Saldana, 2015), I made self-reflection about my experience in creating studentfriendly teaching-learning environment while engaging in TVET programs. As Maanen (2011) and Saldana (2015) noted, my voice as a researcher toward the confessional and critical advocacy of the experience of being facilitator in student-friendly school environment allowed my research participants to confront to the discourse of student-friendly school environment, teaching and learning.
The narratives that I collected through in depth interview were later transcribed and coded followed by the derivation of theme. Later, while interpreting those experiences and stories, I followed three-dimensional narrative inquiry: temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) which helped me to articulate my engagement with school leaders, teachers, parents and students, participating in student friendly teaching learning at TVET schools. While engaging with my research participants, I tried to be tolerant and emotionally responsive so as to support the principle of no harm (Josselson, 2007), and followed the notion of human dignity as the value of my research participants (Luban, 2009). I tried my best to build trust by informing about my aim and having consistent engagement with them. It helped me in developing the relationship and optimistic expectation of their stories with the school leaders, teachers, parents and students that helped in reducing the complexity (Qstergaard, 2015) while deriving and later analysing data.

UNFOLDING THE NARRATIVES AND MEANING MAKING
In this section, I unearth the stories of my participants who have been involving in student centered climate, playing the roles of teachers, students, school leaders and parents in TVET schools. While doing so, I have tried to unpack what opportunities and challenges they have faced while practicing progressive approach in teaching learning.

Narration of Students' Personality Development
Divyansha's mother, Nixita's narration about the changes she had seen in her son after being enrolled in a student-centered TVET school was really interesting. Quoting how a gardener can provide appropriate atmosphere for a flower to bloom beautifully, she acknowledged the role of the school and teachers in inducing confidence and creativity in her son. Moreover, respect towards the family members his son, Divyansha was exhibiting, as Nixita articulated was more than magical for Nixita and it was, as she noted because of the supportive platform he had been receiving from the school: I have seen Divyansha growing more confident and social. He not only comes with suggestions to make things better, but also tries to do the things more differently, using whatever tools and technology he finds around. It wasn't the case till he had been studying in the previous school where used to be provided with less opportunities to question and experiment. Every day, he is willing to explore new and something more challenging. (Nixita, Personal Communication, 2019, April 2) Similar were the remarks of Suyog who had found the approach his teacher had been adopting really encouraging. As he said, on contrary to the general assumption that language employs no technology at all, he had been observing the teacher aligning to more experiential approach. It, in Suyog's statement contributed Suyog to grow more critical and innovative, as he stated, "Student centered teaching learning is nothing alien but the approach is all about encouraging learners to be more participative and teachers acting as facilitators to inspire the learners to gather aspiration" (Suyog, Personal Communication, 2019, April 2).
Bhumi, the principal of one of the reputed TVET schools of Kathmandu was really proud recalling her experience of seeing her students coming up with proposals for organizing newer programs of exhibitions and demonstrations at school and challenging the stereotypes about students. Comparing the situation before shifting from teacher centered to student centered, she added: There to be a time when the students used to keep doing whatever the teacher would say in class without single refusal. Mugging used to be what they would do. But moving from the traditional way to student centered approach these days, I have started seeing them questioning the things they think they don't agree with. Not only this, they prefer leading and mentoring and are more confident to bring new ways of doing things. (Bhumi, Personal Communication, 2019, March 26).
In all the stories of the research participants above, I derived a common discourse and it is the contribution student centered approach had been making in grooming personality of the students. Sulochana, the teacher of an institutional school in Bhaktapur had the similar realization of seeing her students' growing confidence and creativity which I put together with my reflection of working in student centered school. It enabled me to admit, "Yes, placement of students at center of teaching learning can help bridge their personality development!"

Participative School Setting: Raising a Rose among Thorns
Each story created with a notion of change lives in pages is surrounded by a number of ambiguities, each flower that smiles fragrantly blossoms among a number of thorns that may pierce its hope and confidence several times. Bhumi, the school leader's swerving to create student friendly school setting was no less than attempting to thrive, walking on the way paved with knife-like spikes; neither were the efforts of Suyog, a student for getting identified in the class! The narration instigated me to shift back to the high school days when we were supposed to 'shut up' since we were taking what the teacher had been teaching. Talking about the similar paradox he had observed in teaching-learning, Suyog stated: Those were the days when dad's Guru's strict instruction used to be the absolute truth for him, the truth that he had perceived and that would evaluate him.. However, looking 8 Subedi,R. and Shrestha,M. around after about thirty years of dad's strive, I still find my inner self striving! (Suyog, Personal Communication, 2019, April 2).
Where Suyog as a student narrated the unwillingness of teachers to change with changing trends in teaching learning, Sulochana's experience reflected a lot about the barriers that prevailed in creating student centered environment, among which lack of similar kind of learning atmosphere at home was one, as she said. "The greatest trouble in creating learnercentered atmosphere at school is the gap created due to diverse environment at home which often allows the students to perceive the concept, either 'ambiguously' or 'for granted'!" (Sulochana, Personal Communication, 2019, April 16).
Moreover, even Bhumi discussed about the difficulties she as a school principal had to go through so as to create student friendly environment in TVET program. Recalling the days when she was running the schools with limited physical infrastructures, she added how she had nearly got insomniac since she had been receiving a number of complaints from the stakeholders about what she had been doing! Talking particularly about the period before a year, she stated: When I decided to make a change in teaching learning methodology in the school, the very first complaint we got was from our own teachers. They were used to completing conventional works of completing course through limited instruction and merely managed time to listen to students' ideas of making the same thing in a newer way. But with the change in methodology, they had found extra burden added to them. Moreover, even the community members swerved away because they were really doubtful about us. It was really a hard time and now too, working to create student friendly environment is not that easy because it requires higher investment in infrastructures and competent teachers! (Bhumi, Personal Communication, March 26) Nixita was not having less trouble in ensuring student centered learning environment, as her story said.
I am always in a dilemma of how to provide similar kind of environment at home as he gets at school. And even if I try a lot to create environment for his enhancement, it comes out to be too tough because I am not the only member at my house. There are many members whose voices have to be heard and I receive criticisms of pampering him exaggeratedly. Moreover, even the idea of letting him experiment with the tools at home is condemned several times. Not only that, sometimes even Divyansh himself also tries to get the attention for granted which adds to the trouble. Student Friendly Teaching and Learning Environment took me back to the world of reality. Coming out of the fantasy, I said to myself, "Creating student centered environment to enable students' development is synonymous to the story of this red rose."

Consistent Fight to Take a Flight
Popular wisdom has it said, lotus would not have been admired had it bloomed at our reach! And as Shiva Khera quotes, "Your positive action combined with positive thinking results in success". In fact, optimism that was visible in the eyes of Suyog and Sulochana reflecting through the words of Bhumi and Nixita's narration were evident, alternatives can be applied so as to bounce back the challenges in promotion of student-friendly school environment: The basic thing lacking among students and teachers is self-motivation and it can be stimulated. For this, co-work of teacher with students and leaders with teachers is really important! Rather than saying to do, learners should be demonstrated how to do! (Sulochana, Personal Communication, 2018, April 16). DISCUSSION I believe, education and educating are more about transmitting culture and encouraging newer ways of looking at something. People require knowledge, intentions, intelligence and good well to make change advantageous to them (Khasawneh, Miqdadi, & Hijazi, 2014) while the practice of student centered approach in teaching learning, as Nixita had observed had come out to be constructive in making changes in the way his son had started to think and perceive (Eldridge, 1998;Khasawneh, Miqdadi, & Hijazi, 2014;Rockefeller, 1991). Subedi, R. and Shrestha, M. Student centered teaching learning is a collaborative approach which primarily focuses on cooperation, flexible learning and experientialism to achieve learning objectives (Cheong, 2010;Peklaj, 2006;Qutoshi & Poudel, 2014). Creating student centered teaching learning environment, as reflected in the words of Nixita, Sulochana, Bhumi and Suyog can come up with a number of opportunities. Bhumi's experience reflects in the words of McManus (2001) as well who articulates the approach as the medium of empowering learners to be self-responsible, active thinkers and problem solvers and as King (1995) notes, it ultimately develops them grow critical.
Helping learners in their activities in active learning situations (Qutoshi & Poudel, 2014;Tsay & Baraday, 2010) is considered to be the role of the teacher that he/ she plays as a catalyst, a co-learner and observer (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund [UNICEF, 2000) in a child centered teaching learning environment. However, conventional methods applied by the teachers to complete their allocated job in allotted time by making the students do what they expect (Peterson, 2009) can be paradoxical to the role that can be played by teachers to induce what we call progressivism in education. Moreover, as Qutoshi and Poudel (2014) state, on contrary to teacher's amiable treatment encouraging learners to enjoy learning, rigid attitude of the teachers and their disinterest towards supporting them in their learning appear as hurdles to creating student-centered teaching learning environment in TVET schools.
Among the barriers, created in proper execution of student friendly approach in executing TVET programs, shortage of educational resources compounded by its inefficient use (Mathema, 2007) appears as an additional challenge in many schools. Similarly, despite the fact that technologies based pedagogical support, scaffolding, formative and summative assessment of students' performance and planning in accordance with global needs (Scarino & Liddicoat, 2009) are considered to be of great significance in enhancing student-friendly school climate; tendency of finding the use of resources challenging and tiresome (Qutoshi & Poudel, 2014) can be another hindrance to promoting conducive learning environment for students.
As acknowledged by Littlewood (2010), learning becomes more effective if learners are provided with opportunities that best meet their needs. It might be done effectively with the role of teacher as instructional leader (Smyth, 1997) that encourages discursive, collaborative and critical study of classroom interaction while the problems seen in inducing participation in vocational approach can even be identified. Similarly, on contrary to how Suyog's dad was evaluated during his times, assessment made for improving learning (Gipps & Simpson, 2004;Qutoshi & Poudel, 2014) can be one effective way of encouraging students to be more participative and creative, deviating from monotonous rigor of obtaining colorful grades! 11 Student Friendly Teaching and Learning Environment

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Re-collecting the reflection of my research participants, I have earned an insight that creating learning atmosphere and enhancing it is not the job that can be accomplished with effort of single individual. Collaborative effort between family and school, in this sense, carries a great significance for the execution of the concept. Since teachers, parents, TVET school leaders and students have equal significance in materializing the dream of creating studentfriendly teaching-learning atmosphere, efforts to induce self-motivation among teachers seems important. It can even keep the students motivated to make constructive internalization of what 'student-friendly' is in TVET program. While most of parents might remain less known about what the approach actually is, regular communication between family and TVET school might help in making communal application of the concept.
The study, hence implies the efforts to be made from school leaders in making investigation upon the context of parents and further apply the concept of student-friendly teaching-learning so that the challenges that appear in school setting can be addressed.
Similarly, teachers can also work out in preparing strategies so as to enhance communication between students, parents and the school. Apart from these, parents can also facilitate in creating congenial, and at the same time, amiable learning atmosphere at home which can help in filling the gap between home and TVET school environment.