RASUWA, Sept 6: Three years after the devastating earthquake of April 2015, a school in the popular tourist destination of Langtang has finally resumed classes.
In Rasuwa, the earthquake reduced a large number of buildings to rubble. While most of the settlements have already been reconstructed, Nepal Rastriya Primary School could not resume its classes for long. This deprived many students of education.
After much pressure from the locals, the school authority agreed to resume classes. As there was no proper building, Nurchung Tamang, the principal of the school, decided to conduct classes on the front yard of his house. "Mostly we run the classes in the front yard but move inside during rains," said Principal Tamang.
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There are no other schools in Gosainkunda Rural Municipality-4 of Langtang. Students have no other option as they have to walk for two days if they choose to go to other schools.
Established in the year 1977, this school had 24 students before the earthquake. After the shutdown in 2015, Tamang started teaching at the Syafru-based Syamewangfel Secondary School and later at Saraswoti Basic School (SBS) of Chilime.
Another teacher Finjo Tamang started teaching at Nera Primary School of Thuman. Now, both of them have returned to Langtang. While some students were killed in the earthquake, some were taken to Kathmandu on sponsorship of foreigners. Currently, there are nine students in grade one.
There are altogether 116 households in Langtang. Tourism is the main business here. Only two out of seven schools destroyed by the quake have been reconstructed in Rasuwa. This has deprived more than 200 students of education.
Bal Krishna Simkhada, chief of the Education Development and Coordination Unit, assured to start the procedure of rebuilding the schools after inspection.
All five rural municipalities have been urged to send the list of schools within the next two weeks. So far, none of the local units or schools has submitted the application or list.
