KATHMANDU: With the result of SLC, our SLC graduates are looking for a college where to enrol themselves for higher education. However, their search for an ideal educational institution might shrunk as the massive earthquake of 7.6 magnitude on the Richter scale of April 25 and the aftershock of 6.8 magnitude on May 12 have destroyed many buildings including educational institutions. The aftershocks are continuing even today.

Colleges’ preparation

After the earthquake, many colleges either got the red or green sticker, or both — red sticker on the building suggested danger while green sticker denoted safe. As the buildings with red stickers cannot be used, colleges faced space crunch as well as the infrastructure inside the college premises like toilets, libraries, et cetera were affected.

Moreover, colleges whose buildings were affected by earthquake are searching for alternative spaces. Koteshwor Multiple Campus is one among such affected institutions. In a session’s intake, the campus enrols around 350 students in Class XI, while there are 2,100 students studying in the college in various levels and streams. About the condition of the college building, Govinda Bahadur Karki, Campus Chief of the Campus shared, “Around 20 classrooms have been affected by the earthquake and have been given red stickers. We have managed space by renting rooms in nearby educational institutions. The other remaining rooms have got green stickers.”

According to him, they are using government school’s building where the school is running as well as the campus. As such there is the natural conflict between the school and campus administration about the availability of space. “However, it has been 25 years of our collaboration and we are also planning to move the Campus from here to our own land at Jadibuti in the near future after building an earthquake-resistant structure,” added Karki.

The Global College of Management at Bhimsengola got green stickers for its three-storied building. According to Damaru P Paudel, Vice Principal of the College, “Our building has received green sticker and we are safe. Nothing has happened to our building and we are running our everyday work smoothly inside the building.”

He assured, “We have a full-time psychologist in our college for counselling. Students and parents who come to enquire about our college are given a tour of the building for their satisfaction. We are confident that our building is safe. Recently, as the exam centre for Class XII boards, our building held the maximum number of students at a time — 625.”

Student’s point, for the students

The SLC graduates’ first priority is — whether the college building is safe or not — and then they look for other qualities like discipline, facility of extracurricular activities and so on. Yajju Nepali, who completed SLC from New Zenith English Model School, Bhurunkhel shared, “I have visited around eight different colleges and the first thing I look for is — does the building have cracks or not, then does the college provide me the best education possible at a low cost.”

Likewise, Archit Aryal who completed SLC from Apex Life School, Baneshwor looked for green stickers, where he visited three different colleges with his parents. He opined, “I looked at the building first then compared the courses and researched about the teachers and discipline in the college.”

The concern of students is whether the colleges are going to charge them more in the name of restoring the building or building a new structure where Karki emphasised, “We are a public college and we believe in giving quality education at minimal fees. As we have increased Rs 100 last year, we are not going to increase any fee for 10 more years. And as most of the students in our college are from worst earthquake-affected areas like Sindhupalchowk and Gorkha, we are planning to have scholarship for students from those areas.”

Meanwhile being confident about rejoining her college, Joyti Upreti student at Global College of Management studying in Class XI shared, “I visited my college and I did not feel that the earthquake has affected the college building. And we had an orientation class in college after the earthquake that has motivated me to do well in my exams.”