News
Rural Jhapa villages caught in a time warp with no secondary schools
In direct contradiction to government claims that Jhapa leads in all literacy parameters. Villagers say that there is no secondary school in Jhapa since years and the government is not doing anything about it too.
Every year when the new budget is passed, it generates a suitable buzz. However, step into rural Jhapa in the eastern section of Purwanchal and nobody is interested in talking about the budget. Nobody cares about the budget; it is just another annual tamasha by the administration. For life in Jhapa remains largely unaffected by the happenings in the capital, more specifically no budget has ever addressed so far and none are expected to address the one thing the area is crying out for – A secondary school.
"Budget? No idea. Well, it comes every year. But we don't have schools around. We can't afford bicycles for children so that they can join schools that are far from here," said Abdul Miya of Pathamari – 3, whose village shares border with India.
The children of Pathamari are forced to sit at home after completing primary school as few have bicycles on which they dare to cycle very long distance to study. Miya says that even though Muslims dominate the population of the village, interest for modern education is growing. Every parent desires their child to attend a school that provides mainstream education rather than limiting them to Muslim schools. However, lack of easy access to schools has lain to waste the dreams of parents.
"It is still understandable if our children have to go out of the village for campus, IA, BA. But it is very sad even for school level education; they have to venture a long distance away from home. We would appreciate if the government could establish a secondary school in our area," he said.
However, what is truly surprising is that the condition of Miya's village is in direct contradiction to the reputation Jhapa has built up. Jhapa has been regarded as the most 'prosperous', 'educated', and 'developed' place. In fact, on Monday, government officials and other stakeholders officially announced that Jhapa is ahead of all places in the state in terms of literacy. The district education office claimed that Jhapa's literacy excellence is unrivalled among other districts.
It is immediately apparent that the figures collated by the district administration have omitted Miya's village. Several villages in Jhapa lack secondary school for children. In order to attend secondary school, the children have to trek for 12 km one side. The sheer hard work of trekking 24 km every day eventually takes a toll on the kids and they abandon their educational dreams.
Pathamari and Kumarkhod are 2 such unfortunate villages that lack secondary schools. It isn’t that the government is apathetic about the village’s condition. It has been years since the government announced to open secondary school in every VDC. However, the words haven’t seen any action or implementation yet. According to a local Rastriya Prajatantra Party Anjar Alam, debate and discussion over the issue have been carried out several times. During the discussions the District Education Office (DEO) had also stressed on the need to open schools in those VDCs. However, things have not changed so far.
The biggest casualty of the absence of secondary schools is the children from Muslim families who are a dominant population (60%) besides Rajbanshi and Gangai communities. According to the VDC secretary Baburam Pokhrel, "Since I started working as the VDC secretary here 2 years back, I have worked hard with the locals to establish a secondary school in the area. But so far we have been not able to fulfil our objective. We have held discussion with the DEO several times but these discussions too have yield result," he reported.
He admitted that having no secondary school in entire VDC is very pathetic and reflects on the failure of the government mechanism. He said on one hand political parties show no interest, the government shows no interest, on the other hand, concerned authorities never stop from holding meetings and discussions. All this ultimately translates into empty words as anything discussed in these meetings is never implemented.
The story of Kumarkhod is no different. The area thankfully has schools that offer education till grade VIII, lack of schools that could offer higher education has been depriving them of secondary education.
According to assistant District Education Office (DEO), Uddhav Bista, all the students of Kumarkhod go to Taghandubba for higher secondary level. As students from two VDCs are learning at same place this school has been facing shortage of spacious classrooms. Bista explained that opening new schools is not feasible in these areas as there are no incomes for schools in these areas. "Geographical complexities and lack of resources are important reasons for the areas to not have secondary schools," he said.