By Our Correspondent, Lahan, Jan. 4: Khuti Aadharbhut School, a community school that lies at Bano village on the foot of Chure hill in the northern part of Lahan Municipality is now in a miserable condition now though the villagers are economically and academically strong.

The village is the residence of Tharu, Musahar and Dalit community. Now, the school is sustaining from the students from Dalit community while rich Tharu children are sent to private schools in the city.

Only children of Dalit and poor family background are studying at the school after employees and rich families started sending their children to private schools.

 In lack of care of guardians, the children come to school in a miserable situation, Abhit Lal Chaudhary, headmaster of the school, said.

Now, Dalit children from ward number 24 of the municipality are coming to the school. But the situation worsens in rainy season while the school doesn’t have a single student after the rivers near the school become flooded. The school is surrounded by rivers from three sides.

Headmaster Chaudhary said the number of students at schools has decreased significantly after the local Tharu community started teaching their children at private schools in the city.

Though the school recently got a new building from the municipality, it is a matter of worry while locals can’t pay their attention towards the school, Tej Narayan Chaudhary, ward chair of Lahan Municipality-15, said.

The village has 108 households of Tharu community where each household has one government official and they can earn well even from goat keeping, animal husbandry, and from agriculture. Therefore, the ward is planning to run an awareness programme at the village to strengthen schools by drawing villagers’ attention towards schools, ward chair Chaudhary said.

Muni Shah Sudhi, Mayor of Lahan Municipality, said the municipality has been working for the physical and academic progress of all 59 community schools of the municipality. Now, the municipality has been working for the uniformity of textbooks in private and community schools to the narrow educational gap between them.

Schools like Pasupati Aadarsha Secondary School, Matiarwa and Bastipur Secondary School, which used to have more than 3,000 students for decades now have only around 800 students. Those schools are sustaining only because of Dalit and girl students, Raj Kumar Raut, human rights activist, said.