Class VII through IX first inter-class social science quiz was held under the supervision and initiation of the Arts Department of the school as per schedule in the school diary. Each class has sent three representatives for the inter-class quiz contest. The department members have arranged different topics for the quiz namely; Tibetan history, Current Affairs, Visual round, and on Central Tibetan Administration. Rule and regulation governing the contest were made known to the participants before the contest held. This kind of literary activities help students learn on varied topics and help keep them abreast with the latest happenings in and around them. Furthermore, students on the floor have also shown keen interest and enthusiasm and gained a lot from the quiz contest. Some quiz masters have asked questions to the floor as well to make mass students feel their participation in the quiz. The result of inter-house is, the first position goes to IX D with 30 points, followed by VII D with 25 in second position and VII B, VIII D and VIII C with 20 points in third positions.
First inter-house English Debate
The first inter-house English debate for the academic session was organized by the English Department on May 11 evening. Each house has to send three speakers for the extempore debate. The first speaker’s responsibility is to clarify the key words from the debates’ topic. The second speaker has to speak either for or against the motion after analyzing the topic with the group members within the time bound of three minutes. The third speaker has to conclude the topic. The topic for extempore debate has been given to the house after the draw of lot. Trisong house representatives spoke on ‘Should all be banned in the school’, Triral house speakers spoke on ‘Should video game be considered as sport’, Nyatri house speakers debated on ‘Most effective learning takes place outside the school’ and Songsten house debaters debated on ‘Television is the leading cause of violence in Today’s society’. During the rebuttal session, each house was given time to ponder on the topic for awhile before actually motion is being debated. The result of the first inter-house English debate is as given under. The first position is bagged by Triral and followed by Nyatri, Trisong and Songsten house respectively.
His Holiness’s Visit to TCV School Gopalpur
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Much awaited anticipation and long cherished dreams of students and staff members of Tibetan Children’s Village School Gopalpur has come into realization when the spiritual leader of Tibet, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama graciously blessed the school through his visitation on April 29, 2014. Students in uniform and staff members in their best traditional attire gave a warm reception to the His Holiness. School cultural troupe presented Welcome Song and Tashi Shoepa as soon as the motorcade of His Holiness entered the school gate. Junior section students were lined up along the main road with incense, scarf and flowers in their hands to welcome His Holiness the Dalai Lama while senior section students have been sitting and waiting in the school auditorium with much enthusiasm and excitement. The Tibet Country Project work was on display en route to the school hall. 14 classes were involved in the making of TOCP with the help from class and Tibetan teachers. His Holiness enthusiastically watched the project work done by students. Rev. Lobsang Khedup, the religious instructor of the school arranged dialectic presentation by students of three different classes. Students of VIII D made presentation of dialectic on ༼སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ནས་ལ་དོན་གྱི་རྣམ་དབྱེ།༽ IX graders on ༼འཕགས་པའི་བདེན་པ་བཞི།༽ and X graders on ༼ཚན་རིག་གི་ནང་ནས་བྱེ་བྲག་རྡུལ་ཕྲན།༽ Thereafter, His Holiness spoke on the 20th century as one of murderous centuries with the outbreak of WW II which claimed around 200 million lives according to some historians. Furthermore, His Holiness said that children of today belong to the 21st century and this century should be a century of dialogue to resolve any kind of issues pertaining to human kind. He urged the students to be good human beings and think on becoming a contributing member toward world peace at large. Later on His Holiness blessed the students and staff members with the mantra of ༼རྗེ་བཙུན་འཇམ་དཔལ་དབྱངས་ཀྱི་གཟུངས་སྔགས་ལུང༽ Before the departure from the school, His Holiness also consecrated the Jangchup Stupa and was warmly seen off by the students, staff members and public with scarf, incense and flowers in their hands. The visit of His Holiness to our school is a golden chapter being added to the annals of TCV Gopalpur.
Foot Ball Match
2014 Girls inter-house foot ball match got started on 30 April under the supervision of Games and Sports Committee. Two matches are played in a day. There are two groups of girls’ team; the first team group comprised of students from VII through X and second group from XI and XII students. Playing football game is a good platform for students to improve stamina and get chance to exhibit their skills and at the same time learns many skills and techniques.
Panchen Lama’s Birth Day celebration
25th April, 2014 was observed as the 25th Birth anniversary of the 11th Panchen Lama by Tibetan in exile. The 11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the rightful incarnate of Panchen Lama as recognized by the His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was abducted by the Chinese Government and since then He became the youngest political prisoner in the world. The Central Tibetan Administration organized an official function at Tsuglakhang on 25th April. The school captains accompanied by prefects, hostel monitors, house captions and one teacher in charge attended the official function. Here in the school, a special program was organized in the morning assembly by “Students for Language Preservation” ༼ཕ་སྐད་དྭངས་བླངས་ཞབས་ཞུ་ཚོགས་པ།༽ Students and staff members were given to understand the life history of the 10th Panchen Lama by Gyen. Samten Gyatso. Mr. Gyatso talked about the extraordinary contributions and sacrifices made by the 10th Panchen Lama for the Tibetan people and the Tibetan identity, including the 70,000 Character Petition which He penned and presented to the Chinese authorities. In the document, the Panchen Lama provided a detailed account of the Tibetan people’s suffering under the Chinese rule and criticized the Chinese government’s policies being followed in Tibet. He was critical of the Chinese government’s repressive policies which caused him his life under mysterious circumstances at the age of 52. Thereafter, one of the school prefects master Norbu Lhagyal gave a short hagiography of the 11th Panchen Lama. The best write ups were awarded by the members of ༼ཕ་སྐད་དྭངས་བླངས་ཞབས་ཞུ་ཚོགས་པ།༽ After the function, the whole school got engaged in the work of campus cleaning and the gardening club of the school planted 25 new saplings in the school garden in celebration and remembrance of the 25th birth anniversary of the 11th Panchen Lama. Students and staff members celebrated the 25th Birth Day of the 11th Panchen Lama with mixed feelings of joy and pain as we don’t know anything about the well being and whereabouts of one of Tibet’s most revered spiritual lamas/leaders.
Inter-house Tibetan Elocution
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Below class VIII inter-house Tibetan elocution contest was held on Monday, 21st April by the Tibetan department. There were three sections in the elocution contest; one contestant has to recite compulsory poetry piece provided by the Tibetan department, second participant has to make presentation of speech and the third contestant of the house has to go for dramatic extract presentation. The participants of the respective houses have done very good preparation on their parts and it was worth watching and also proven to be a source of inspiration for other students. After the actual contest, the floor was left open for the students sitting on the floor while the calculation is being done. It was a wonderful opportunity for other students to come on the stage and speak before the audience to acquire skill of speaking, removing public and stage fear. The final result of house standing in the contest is as follow: the first position was bagged by Songsten and Triral, there was no second position holder, and the third position went to Nyatri and followed by Trisong. From the speech section there are two first position holders namely master Palden and master Lobsang Tashi. From the poetry section we have Miss. Hrithar Tsering who was adjudged as the best poetry reciter and from dramatic section the best presenter went to Kalsang Gyaltsen.
Basket Ball Tournament
From 17 April – 25 April, inter-house basketball tournament was held under the guidance and supervision of the housemasters and games committee. Students from different classes representing the four houses played matches among three main divisions on the basis of their height and weight. These games are important part of the physical and mental growth and development. It is also one of the important aspects of school curriculum. Many students get good opportunity to develop and exhibit skill and tactics during the practice session and tournament. We have staff members from different departments who carried out their responsibility as assigned by the games and sports committee.
English Quiz
The first literary contest (English Quiz) was held on April 10. We have to make changes in the schedule of English Quiz as two of the English teachers have to leave for English workshop to be held in TCV Dharamsala. There were 24 participants in all from classes VII through XII. The topics for the quiz were announced a week before the actual contest was held. The quiz was held on the following topics: 1) grammar 2) books and authors 3) audio-visual rounds 4) rapid fire round. For each topic, there were different quiz masters. Students on the floor showed interest in the English quiz especially in the rapid fire round. This kind of literary activity evokes learning spirit amongst the students and many students got informed and exposed to different arena of competition even when they were not directly involved in the quiz contest. The winners were awarded prizes by the school principal.
Class XI Reporting
April 7 is the day on which students from sister TCV schools will report TCV Gopalpur for Arts Stream. There were initially 190 students in the list joining Arts Stream from TCV Dharamsala, TCV Chauntra, and TCV Bylakuppe including our own students. But some of them have not reported either due to withdrawals or left for other schools or abroad already. There were 175 students on the ground this year. A welcome tea party was organized on the evening of April 8 with members from Advisory Committee and Management Committee. On 9th April the new class XI students were apprised of school discipline by the members of Advisory committee, so that they know the rules and regulations of the school in advance and there is no breach of school discipline by them knowingly or unknowingly and at the same time school authorities expect good discipline from them in the coming months.
Class Trekking
In order to provide a real life experience for our children, class-wise trekking was organized every week-end. The first class to go for trekking was the students of class VII. This year there are three sections of Class VII and students left for their trekking with their class and subject teachers on March 5, 2014. The things needed for the trekkers are being provided from the kitchen store such as dry ration, vegetables, cooking stove with oil, etc. The trekking involved walking, camping, hiking and cooking food by students with an overnight stay in the mountains. Class VII students are divided into groups to get the provision from the kitchen store and purchases done. Things which are not available in the school are being bought by the students themselves.
Graduation Day
Outgoing class XII graduation function was held on 31st March, 2014 at 9.30 AM. The chief guest for the occasion was Gyen Thupten Dorjee from the head office, TCV. The program started with TCV School Gopalpur Song ‘Gangri Thonpo’. Thereafter the principal Phuntsok Tashi gave the introductory speech with appreciation words for the outgoing students who had left behind good image by being so responsible and self-disciplined throughout the year and for having set a good example before the school. He thanked them for their good behavior and being studious throughout the year. He further informed the outgoing students about the difference of environment between the school and society and urged everyone to be responsible, know time management and pursue for specialization in their field of study. At the end the principal wished them good luck in the years ahead. Next speaker was master Jampa la, the representative of outgoing students expressed the sentiments of students after having spent 10 years in the school. He said that there is no fundamental difference between the staff members of TCV Suja and TCV Gopalpur in terms of shouldering the responsibilities in the upbringing of students. What he noticed was there was lack of respect being shown from the students’ end which must be done away with. Finally his apologies go to those who had been hurt during the tenure of his captaincy if he has committed mistakes. The chief guest was impressed by the school song and pointed out that outgoing students have to remember the gratitude of the school and they won’t find such greenery environment once you step out of the school and may encounter different problems but have to face those challenges bravely and get adjusted with the new setting. The guest of honor was gladdened to have seen many ex-TCVians are making contribution towards Tibetan Children’s Village from across the world. Finally he laid stress on to be a good human being and imperative for all of us to preserve our rich cultural heritage and be proud of being a Tibetan. After the formal function, there was snack and tea for the staff and outgoing class XII students followed by photo session with subject teachers and management committee.
