Dadeldhura, October 22

Stakeholders asserted that around 70 per cent child development centres in Dadeldhura have not been providing proper care to children.

At an all-party meeting held at the District Education Office yesterday, most participants said that child development centres had not been providing property care to children due to lack of monitoring by the authorities.

A local Nepali Congress leader Gokul Shahi said that although the DEO had been running 68 child development centres in the district, but they were not operating systematically as the facilitators in the centres were appointed under political pressure and influence.

Shahi said that nutritious food items meant for children were being fed to livestock. “The children have been given the same food items for years. So, they bring the food home and feed it to the cattle instead,” Shahi said. He demanded that the food items need to either be changed or the service closed.

CPN-UML leader Nar Bahadur Bista cast doubt over the DEO’s ability to monitor the centres at the headquarters, let alone outside the headquarters. “The DEO has failed to manage schools at the headquarters. One can only guess the situation in schools outside the headquarters,” Bista added.

District Education Officer Basant Kumar Khatri said that his office was having a hard time operating child centres as private schools were mushrooming both at the headquarters and remote villages.