Kalika School operating in same old building for 52 years in Khotang

By Our Correspondent,Khotang, Feb. 13: Kalika Basic School was set up in Rawabesi Rural Municipality-2, in Khotang district, in 1970, by constructing a single-storey building with corrugated sheet roofs. Since then, the school has been running classes from the same building, which is now in a dilapidated condition. 

The people, who saw the building being constructed five decades ago, have become old now. They say that the school has become as weak as their old bodies.

Locals and school administration officials informed that individuals living in the neighbourhood of the school have become ministers and government secretaries.

Houses of CPN-Moist Centre leader and former education minister Girijamani Pokhrel, former home secretary Padam Pokhrel and former government secretary Devraj Pokhrel lie near the school.  

Locals informed that former home secretary Pokhrel studied in the same school during his childhood.

The school offers classes from grades 1-5. However, there are only 22 students in the school. It has two teachers and an office assistant.

“One teacher quota was removed from the school by the local government recently and the post was transferred to another school,” said Chetnath Pokhrel, the school’s headmaster.

Pokhrel informed that the classes are small and the building is in a dilapidated condition, making it unfit for students to study in.

Six years ago, the school’s management committee had requested the District Coordination Committee and District Education Office to construct a proper school building. “We have received several verbal assurances since then,” the headmaster said.

A solution was sought to create proper studying environment for the students by merging the basic school with Sharada Secondary School, which is nearby.

“However, there has been disputes regarding the further use of the school building as well as its area, which has halted the merging process,” said Kalidas Pokhrel, former ward chairman of Ward No. 2.

Since the number of students is dwindling, there have been discussions to merge it. 

However, locals informed that the inability to decide whether to merge the school or to construct a new er infrastructure for the school has affected the children and their study.