The Badarjhula Lower Secondary School in Badarjhula village in the district has been closed after local teachers hired by the school through private resources stopped teaching stating that they haven´t been provided salary for the past several months.[break]
Earlier, there were five teachers under the per child funding quota at the school but after the quota was blocked, the school hired the teachers through its own resources and they were teaching without salary for the past 11 months, said Netra Bahadur Gandharba, the school principal. “The school owes the teachers a total of Rs 400,000 and the teachers have said they would not resume work until their outstanding salaries are paid,” he said, adding, "The school has no alternative source of income."
Although the Chitwan District Education Office (DEO) provided three teachers immediately after the closure, the three also have not reported for duty.
Madhav Poudel, a teacher at the school said that they are yet to get salaries of the past 11 months at the rate of Rs 8,200 per teacher per month. The school, established in 1992 has 425 students.
After the DEO and authorities concerned did not take any initiative to provide financial support to resume classes, local guardians of Badarjhula have gathered at the district headquarters Bharatpur for collecting funds for the school. They have so far collected Rs 13,000 from various sources, according to Shyam Khadka, a guardian.
“We were unable to pay the teachers´ salaries by ourselves so we have come to Bharatpur for raising funds as the future education of the children has become uncertain with the closure of the school,” said Khadka.
However, Ramakanta Sharma, DEO claimed that the classes at the school will resume soon as the DEO has already provided teachers. “As the DEO cannot provide salaries to the teachers privately hired by the school, the school administration has to pay the salaries by itself.” said DEO Sharma.
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