Kharikhola Middle School
Project details
Sir Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust built a middle school at Kharikhola in 1986, in Solukhumbu district. Now called Kharikhola Secondary School, it has grown into one of the Trust's most heavily supported schools, with around 230 students receiving scholarships, a computer lab, science lab, smart boards, furniture, teacher salaries and ongoing teacher training, and it has been chosen as one of the network's Centre of Excellence schools.
Head teacher Tilak Rajan Magar has described the change directly: "Gone are the days when students sat on worn-out benches in dimly lit rooms, with little more than chalk and a blackboard. Today, our classrooms are bright, colorful, and thoughtfully furnished." A colleague, Tej Bahadur Magar, put the result more simply: "Since Himalayan Trust Nepal began supporting our school, students have started coming from faraway places to study here."
Kharikhola's transformation is documented in the school's own words. In a 2025 Trust success story titled "From Modest Beginnings to Model Classrooms," head teacher Tilak Rajan Magar wrote: "What began as a humble, under-resourced learning space has blossomed into a vibrant hub of education... Gone are the days when students sat on worn-out benches in dimly lit rooms, with little more than chalk and a blackboard. Today, our classrooms are bright, colorful, and thoughtfully furnished. Smart whiteboards, age-appropriate desks, and cozy reading corners" have replaced them, he wrote, crediting the school's new computer and science labs with having "sparked curiosity and encouraged hands-on learning, something we once only dreamed of."
A second 2025/26 success story, by Nepali-language teacher Bhim Bahadur B.K., quotes a colleague, Tej Bahadur Magar, on the school's growing reputation: "Since Himalayan Trust Nepal began supporting our school, students have started coming from faraway places to study here." Kharikhola was selected as a Centre of Excellence school under the Trust's current education programme, QEPS III, and during a 2025 monitoring visit the school community singled out the computer lab's effect on digital learning.
The support runs deeper than buildings and furniture. Kharikhola is also home to Trust scholarship recipients such as Dawa Tashi Sherpa, who completed advanced secondary studies in biology on a Trust scholarship and is training to become a nurse, and the school takes part in the Trust's ongoing School-Based Teacher Training Programme, which ran a five-day training course there in 2025.