By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Jan. 16: A total of 29 school and university students from Nepal and 10 South Korean university students have got an opportunity to learn the overall procedure of the Virtual Reality (VR) development online.

Along with the VR development programme, the organisation had also implemented the online mentoring programme at Sundi Secondary School based in Mayadevi Municipality of Rupandehi district. UHGHF had joined hands with Seoul National University (SNU) based in Seoul and Lumbini Buddhist University (LBU) based in Lumbini. The three-month programmes that were launched in November 2021 aimed at introducing the new technology in the community school to enhance the quality of education.

The programmes were part of SNU’s Online Volunteer Corps in Nepal.
According to UHGHF, altogether 39 students (16 from LBU, 13 from Sundi Secondary School and 10 from SNU), took part in the programme.
The participants have gained both theoretical and practical knowledge about VR development, including planning, shooting and editing, from Korean VR expert online.

The students were divided into six groups who prepared six different videos on three varied topics (nature, culture and school life). The main purpose of the programme was to encourage students to adopt the world’s latest technology and familiarise the locals with VR.

On January 14, students made the final screening of the six videos at the Auditorium of LBU by following all the health safety protocols. Only 24 participants and other stakeholders, including LBU’s Registrar Tilak Ram Acharya, Country Director of UHGHF Lim Haehoon, Principal of Sundi Secondary School Satish Chandra Mani Tripathi, attended the programme physically while around 100 others, including SNU’s Chairman (Social Responsibility) Yae Myungseok, took part in it online.

Similarly, a total of 40 students actively took part in the mentoring programme as mentors and mentees. They were divided into five different groups (career, computer skill, learning English, school life and tourism. The topics were finalised on the basis of a survey conducted on the students prior to the programme. In the programme, the students from SNU and LBU worked as mentors while the students from Sundi Secondary School were mentees.

During two-and-a-half hours, both the programmes had two mid-term review sessions where all the participants discussed their ideas, achievements and further plans.
On January 13, the online mentoring programme had its final session where the students made their commitment to running the similar activities in LBU and Sundi Secondary School with the creation of students’ clubs in both the institutions for the sustainability of the programme.

Under this programme, computers, VR sets and other materials were also donated to Sundi Secondary School and LBU.
Founded by South Korea’s mountaineer Captain Um Hong Gil, UHGHF has, so far, built 16 Community school buildings with sufficient furniture and other basic facilities in 13 districts across Nepal. In recognising his significant contribution to the country’s education sector, the government of Nepal had conferred honorary citizenship to Um two years back.