Nine schools were merged within a year for failing to meet the criteria. In a recent case, an Inaruwa-based Sunsari Primary School was merged with a nearby Bhagwati High School despite the objections from the school principals and teachers.
In their attempt to avoid merger and get more benefits from the DEO, many schools in the district were found to be showing fake students.
A monitoring conducted by the DEO in 2012 had found 27,443 fake students in the district. Since then, the DEO has been strictly monitoring the schools to thwart attempts to show fake incidents.
During a recent monitoring by the DEO, Hari Singha Primary School in Devangunj VDC was found to be operating with just 15 students. Likewise, Sitaram Primary School of Sripurjabdi has also been operating with negligible number of students. Similar was the situation at other schools, including Jagdish Primary School of Kushaha, Gadi Primary School and Kunti Primary School of Aurabarni.
"Our monitoring team will direct schools with small number of students to merge and those without students or fake students to shut down," said Assistant District Education Officer Durga Khatiwada. Seven such schools have been forced to shut permanently.
"We have not found problems with high schools and higher secondary schools. Many primary schools have far less students than is mandatory," she added.
According to her, many schools are neither linked to proper road nor have a land of their own. "We have directed schools with no land to manage land. Schools with no road access have also been told to make the school accessible by road," Khatiwada further added.
"Many schools are operating just as a place for employing teachers. We will soon decide whether to close or merge such schools," said Tulashi Narayan Adhikari, another Assistant District Education Officer.
There are 213 primary schools, 69 lower secondary schools, 55 high schools and 42 higher secondary schools in the district.
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