Nepal

Bajura teachers deprived of salary due to budget crunch

Bajura teachers deprived of salary due to budget crunch

By Himalayan News Service

BAJURA, July 31 Teachers serving in public schools have been doing their job without remuneration for long in Bajura. Many teachers working in the proposed community secondary schools have been deprived of their salary and are facing hard time due to financial crunch. Of the total 56 government secondary schools in the district, as many as 23 are proposed ones. Of them, Malika Secondary School has six teachers under private resources. “We have not been able to pay their monthly salary for the past year. All of our teachers have been serving in debt. We would pay the teachers immediately if budget was provided for the same,” said Rajendra Singh, head teacher of the school. Another proposed Bhagawati Secondary School has seven teachers. At least Rs 75,000 is required for their salary every month. However, the teachers have not been paid for the past one-and-a-half year due to budget crunch, said Jagat Nath, a teacher at the school. “I am yet to obtain around two lakh rupees in salary, but the payment is uncertain,” said Nath. Similar is the case with teachers under private source at Sigada School for the past eight months. Schools which were proposed secondary with political back-up have been suffering due to budget shortage. “Many of the proposed schools have been facing hard time due to acute shortage of budget,” said District Education Officer Ramesh Raj Poudel. SLC graduates have been recruited at most of the schools for want of qualified teachers, said Tula Bahadur Thapa, central member of Teacher’s Union. He said that lack of subject teachers had hit education quality. Khadka Shah, district chairperson of Teacher’s Union, said various schools were facing crisis due to the lack of budget. Earlier, the schools used to receive budget under PCF, however, the budget is yet to be released. The salary of some teachers was managed through door-to-door donation campaign.