As many as 68 students of the school from grade five to seven in Lumle VDC had fled to Pokhara on March 4 after they couldn´t stand discrimination and poor treatment by their school teachers. Before their return, they had been taking shelter at Urban Development Training Center of Nadipur, Pokhara. While 50 of the students are boys 18 of them are girls. They are from 22 districts across the country. [break]
The Western Regional Education Directorate and the District Education Office (DEO) of Kaski handed over the students to their respective parents after they refused to return to school.
The students admitted that they fled the school hostel after the teachers discriminated against them and only favored local students.
“We really want to continue our studies as our final exams are just around the corner. But we are returning home as the teachers there treat us poorly,” said Surchana Pudasaini, a seventh grader. She said that the government, which has provided them scholarship, should also arrange for their studies elsewhere.
“We hadn´t sent our children to the school to be treated poorly. We will admit our children where they can continue their studies,” said irate Bhakta Raj Neupane of Tanahu, who had arrived in Pokhara to take his son home. He said their children will study at home until the DEO makes alternative arrangement for their final examinations.
President of the school management committee Bishnu Bahadur Dware said they handed over the students to their parents after they refused to return to the school. “We will make an alternative arrangement for their final examinations,” he said, adding that the DEO will probe the incident and punish the guilty.
The government had provided scholarship to students under the Public Educational Cooperative Program over the last three years.
Meanwhile, right activists in the district also said the government should make an alternative arrangement for students who have quit the school. “The government should arrange for their studies in another school,” said Shiva Khakurel, chief of Insec in Pokhara.
Related story
Why the delay?
