Manang: Students in town while teachers get salary for looking after schools in villages

eAdarsha.com Reporter
Oct 10, 2020
school Narpabhumi

Phu Basic School located in Phu village of Manang district. Photo: Prakash Dhakal

Chyakhu (Manang), Prakash Dhakal : Daughter of Lakpa Sonam Lama, a local resident of Phu village of Manang district studies in Kathmandu. He was compelled to send his daughter in capital as there is no good schools in village. There is only one basic school which has only 2 rooms. He questioned- “Are those rooms for teachers or for students ?”

Similarly, Neema Theli, a resident of Chyakhu village has admitted his daughter in Pokhara and son in Kathmandu. It takes whole day to reach near by school on foot. Schools closed to Chyakhu village are located in Naar and Phu village but unfortunately both the villages are one day far.

This village has 538 people and every year dozens of students temporarily migrate to town to complete at least secondary level education. There are no proper schools with good education in village to stop them from being migrating. People who cannot afford to send their children to town sends them to district headquarter, Chame.

There are now 5 children in Phu Basic school. Earlier there were only 2 students but due to pandemic, the school got additional 3 students as they have been stuck in village.

Meanwhile, there were only 5 students in Naar Basic School of Narpabhumi village but due to lockdown 5 students who returned from town are also studying, increasing the students to 10. But when everything goes normal, returnee students will go back to town for study. Education Officer of Phu village, Yagya Lamichhane said that all the returnee will go back to town once boarding schools will open.

Schools in himalayan region remains shut for 5 months in winter and they conduct final exam in November. After end of examination, villagers temporarily migrate to town to escape the severe cold months. Most of the students who goes to city area with their parents gets admission and never return to village to study.

Phu Rural Municipality is constructing a new building of 8 rooms for Phu Basic School with budget of RS 40 lakhs as old building of 2 rooms was damaged. Government has provided 7 permanent teachers for 2 schools in villages. Narbhumi School has 5 teachers while 2 teachers in Phu Basic School. There are 2 additional temporary teachers in Phu School.

“Everyday teachers comes to school. They teach few students, play with them and then return back to their places.”- education officer Yagya Lamichhane added. Due to lack of students budget of RS 14 lakhs sent by government for schools got frozen last year.

Teachers regularly gets salary but most of the students are in town so education department is training Montessori teachers to raise the quality education from the foundation level.  Chyakhu School and Phu School runs classes only up to grade 5. Local government has made plan to run secondary level school in Chyakhu.