After the 6.8 magnitude earthquake razed their school to ground in September, dozens of students at the Rashtriya Secondary School in Pedong village of Taplejung are studying outside on soggy floor with plastic sheets overhead.[break]
Students at Kalika Higher Secondary School in Nangkholyang village also study under plastic sheets propped up by bamboos. With maximum temperature dipping to less than 14 degree Celsius, students are finding it difficult to focus their attention to what their teachers say.
Ghanendra Acharya, principal of Kalika School, said that they started conducting classes outside after District Education Office (DEO) of Taplejung failed to promptly allocate budget for repairing their quake-wrecked school. “We are conducting classes outside because we can not keep waiting for the budget indefinitely,” Acharya told Republica.
As of now, three schools including Rashtriya and Kalika have started running classes outside under plastic sheets. Dozens of other schools are running classes in the rooms that were not affected by the quake. Some schools have not even started classes due to lack of rooms.
“We are worried especially because exams are around the corner,” says Laxmi Prasad Mabo, principal of Laxmi Secondary School in Mamangkhe village. “It is hard for students to prepare for exams in this condition.”
The earthquake that struck on September 18 killed five people, left many more injured, and wrecked 146 schools in Taplejung districts.
Out of those schools, at least 80 schools have been badly damaged. They are unable to run classes because most of their rooms have cracked badly, according to Red Cross Society of Taplejung. At a time when the government has remained elusive on the issue of allocating budget for repair works, Red Cross has expressed its commitment to help 80 schools erect makeshift blocks within three months for running temporary classes.
The Taplejugn DEO says it can allocate budget for repairing damaged school buildings only after getting detailed reports of damage caused by the earthquake. “Even the regular budget allocated for school building construction will be sanctioned only upon receiving a detailed damage reports,” says acting District Education Officer Lay Prasad Niraula.
According to Niraula, Department of Education (DoE) has categorically instructed the Taplejung DEO to not allocate budget to any school without first receiving exact details of the damage.
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