Pupils reach peak with Hillary's help

Travel editor COLIN MOORE goes back to school in the shadows of Mt Everest.

The legacy of Sir Edmund Hillary and the Himalayan Trust he founded runs deep in the Khumbu Valley of Nepal.

Trek along the famous foot-road to Mt Everest and the Nepalese you meet will likely have been educated in one of the many schools built by the trust.

Ang Chindu Sherpa, our trek leader, took us to his old school, Mahendrajyoti, a Hillary school near Lukla.

We followed paths between stone walls and ploughed fields, across small footbridges to a cluster of low buildings.

It was lunch time and the school's 260 students were doing what students do all over the world. A few were scrambling up a rock, older students were playing volleyball and others just sat and talked.

The school has students from six to 20 years. Some must walk for two hours to get to school.

Its history is written on a sign above the door of each of the modest buildings.

"Sir Admund Hillari, Block A, 1965," notes one. The "Sir Admund Hillari Block C" was built 20 years later.

The principal, Biru Man Rai, explains the school is largely dependent on help from the trust, particularly for books and desks.

"Getting textbooks, stationery, sports equipment and resources such as furniture is our biggest problem," he says.

The school's 13 teachers include Steve Noud, an American from Denver and a member of the Himalayan Explorers' Club.

A carpenter by trade, he stopped at the school to build a few desks and has stayed to teach the basics of reading and writing to a wide-eyed group of 48 six-year-olds.

The school teaches Nepalese, mathematics, science, social studies, English, population and environment, health, economics and geography.

Biru Man Rai says many pupils obtain work in the travel industry, but the school can also count among its graduates doctors, scientists and university academics. Top students get bursaries to further their studies in Kathmandu.

One 16-year-old girl told me she planned to be a doctor, another a nurse. A third was unsure but when I suggested "marriage and the kitchen" she forcefully replied, "No way."

The trust and those who give to it, can be assured their efforts are well-rewarded. And for the record, our trek group was hammered on the volleyball court.