More schools may be in line for merger if enrollments drop after a few weeks of the school enrollment campaign, said Khagendra Nepal, Director at the Department of Education.
The highest number of schools was merged in Sarlahi, where 208 schools have been shut down and eight merged with one another. Taplejung is the only district where none of the schools faced merger.In the Kathmandu Valley, 35 schools have been merged: 21 in Kathmandu and seven each in Lalitpur and Bhaktapur.
Introducing the merger policy last year, the government provisioned that the teachers working in the two schools that are merged would work in the school thus formed till the government makes another decision regarding staff management.
Likewise, DEOs have been ordered to merge two or more schools on the basis of student enrollment, nearness of schools from one to another, and the property dispute between two or more schools.
In mountainous areas, schools with less than 10 students in grade 1 and less than 20 in grade 12 were merged. In hills, the schools with less than 20 students in grade 1 and 25 in 12 were merged with two or more schools. But in the Valley and Tarai areas, schools with less than 30 students in grade 1 and 2, 35 in grade 1 to 5 and 30 in grade 12 were merged, as per the criteria set in the government's policy.
Educationist Basudev Kafle said that settling the dispute over property is likely to be a big challenge for the government while enforcing the decision.
"The school is a public property. Let the community decide how they want to utilize the infrastructure," stated Kafle.
DoE Under-Secretary Yogendra Prasad Baral said that the District Education Offices have run the early childhood program in some of those schools whereas many others have been handed over to the respective local authority such as VDCs or municipalities.
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