Surkhet, August 3:

A Jana Srijana Secondary School formed by merging two schools at Tatopani village development committee is on the verge of closure due to lack of funds.

Students take classes in the open in the only secondary school of the VDC. Headmaster of the school, Bal Bahadur Bohora, said the school has got approval to conduct classes up to the third grade and all other classes are conducted through local resources. This has resulted in severe financial crisis.

“We do not have the infrastructure and funds and this is making it increasingly difficult for us to run the school,” Bohora said. About 500 students are now studying in the school and the number is increasing every year, it is stated. Earlier, the school used to collect fees from students to support educational activities.

However, Maoist student activists have barred it from taking fees from the students currently, he said. The Surkhet District Development Committee and the Tatopani village development committee had provided Rs 265,000 for the construction of a school building, but the chairman of the building consumers’ committee, Bir Bahadur Shahi, embezzled Rs 200,000 and the incomplete school building is now on the verge of crumbling, a source at the school said.

Locals are worried that their wish to have a secondary school in their own village is now not going to materialise.