Byas Shankar Upadhayaya

Rajbiraj, February 1:

Thanks to the absence of teachers, a peon of Sharada Rastriya Primary School at Gobargada VDC is at the helm of affairs at the school for a month.

The situation arose due to the absence of school principal Ganga Saha and teachers Manoj Nayak and Bhoj Dev Mandal.

Since the Gobargada village development committee is surrounded by the Koshi river, classes cannot be run during the monsoon. Guardians are worried that the teachers’ absence at a favourable time would put the future of their children at stake.

Says peon Ram Lakhan Ray, “I ask the children to go home after engaging them in some activities for one-and-a-half hours.”

Locals say the teachers remain absent for months because Saha and Nayak have homes at Hanumannagar and Mandal hails from Inaruwa, Sunsari. The school has 75 students at present. According to Ray, some 50 students have left the school because of irregular studies.

Poonam, Reena and Santosh, students of the school, are not going to school because there will be no classes.

An officer at the DEO said the DEO would take action against the teachers after probing into the matter.