Bajura, September 3

Students of Gyanodaya Secondary School, located in Rajatoli, Badimalika Municipality, have been attending classes in the open in Bajura of late.

The students have had to face this difficulty for want of classrooms and other infrastructure. The school building is in dilapidated condition. It doesn’t have necessary furniture, including desks and benches, which have adversely affected the teaching learning process at the school.

The infrastructure built in 2010 has turned miserable for want of necessary repairs. The school building developed cracks due to the devastating earthquake of 2015. The roof of the building was blown away by the storm in May 2016 leaving the classrooms open for rain waters. The school management has no option but to shut the school if it rains. There are 350 students studying at the school. “We attend class only on sunny days,” said Sharada Timilsena, a student.

“Students often fall ill due to the dampness inside classrooms and this has affected daily teaching learning,” said Prem Lal Padhyay, a teacher.

The school runs multiple classes in the dilapidated infrastructure due to classroom crunch, except during monsoon. “The school doesn’t have income source of its own so constructing classrooms has been a far cry for us. District Education Office grants budget to schools, but our school has not received any budget from it. We demanded budget from local bodies, but our plea fell on deaf ears,” said Padhyay.

“Though budget worth millions has been allocated every year, the schools in the vicinity of the district headquarters, however, are compelled to run classes in the open,” regretted locals.