Govt decides to close all schools for three days, halt all ongoing examinations

KATHMANDU, Sept 28: The government has decided to close all schools across the nation for three days and halt all the ongoing examinations amid the flood and landslides triggered by incessant rainfall for the past three days.

According to the Minister for Education, Science and Technology Bidya Bhattarai, an emergency Cabinet meeting held on Saturday chaired by Acting Prime Minister Prakash Man Singh, has decided to close all the schools across the nation for three days. 

“Keeping in mind the safety of the students across the nation who have to traverse through disaster-hit zones, the Cabinet meeting has decided to close all lower secondary, secondary and higher secondary educational institutions for three days,” Minister Bhattarai told Republica. She added that the local levels have been handed the responsibility to decide the schedule for reopening the schools in their jurisdiction as per the level of risks in their respective areas.  

Minister for Communication and Information Technology Prithvi Subba Gurung also confirmed to Republica that the emergency Cabinet meeting decided to halt the ongoing exams until further notice. According to Minister for Home Affairs Ramesh Lekhak, the Ministry of  Education, Science and Technology has been handed the responsibility to decide the schedule for the examinations.

The Ministry of  Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) has decided to halt the ongoing examinations, delegating the concerned authorities the responsibility to reschedule the examinations. Minister Bhattarai informed Republica that the ministry has decided to delegate the responsibilities to the concerned local bodies in the context of schools, and the universities in the context of higher education institutions. 

“Since the executives of the universities argued that they have the capability to reschedule the examinations on their own, the working committee of each university has been delegated the responsibility to reschedule their examinations,” Minister Bhattarai told Republica, “In the case of the Tribhuvan University (TU), the university has decided to reschedule each day’s exam to the next day for students who miss their examinations.” She added that the TU has two holidays in their current examination schedule which makes it easier to reschedule the examination.

Earlier, the TU had postponed the entrance examination of Bachelor’s of Agriculture and Animal Science program, which was scheduled for Saturday. The persistent rainfall for the last three days has wreaked havoc across the country, claiming 49 lives and has left 40 missing so far.