Pyuthan, April 23 :

All Pyuthan district-based private schools, closed for six years due to pressure from the Maoist-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R), will run classes from this academic year.

Rameshwor Subedi, a member of the Kalika Secondary School’s management committee, said: “An agreement has been reached with the ANNISU-R to let the schools run again. As per the agreement, the schools will remove the words ‘Boarding’ and ‘Residential’ from the school signboards and letterheads.”

Now on, these schools will have a uniform fee structure and they will all have the same textbooks. “The introduction of the uniform fee structure has made the guardians happy,” said Man Bahadur KC, a member of the Bahane-based Junkiri Primary School management committee.

Sources at the Pyuthan district education office (DEO) said, “While the schools have removed the word “Boarding”, they have not filed applications seeking to remove the word from the DEO records.” An official at the DEO, Keshav Raj Gautam, said: “Nine private schools have permission to run private schools in the district. But I am unaware of the removal of the words ‘Boarding’ and ‘Residential’ from sign plaques or letterheads.”

According to the DEO sources, Public Mallarani, Gaumukhi, Mahatara, Deep Jyoti, Sanways, Evergreen and Junkiri schools will run again from this academic year. School owners have also reached an agreement with the ANNISU-R to provide 15 per cent scholarship (half each per cent for martyrs’ children and poor students) to students.