Debel School children studying sitting on the floor

By Our Correspondent,Humla, June 11:The students of Debel Primary School, located at Tumcha village in Ward No. 1 of Sarkegad Rural Municipality in Humla district, are forced to take classes on the floor.  The school is unable to arrange desk and benches in the classrooms, forcing students to study sitting on the floor. 

That has been the case for four years now.   The headmaster of the school Kali Bahadur Rawat said that the students of classes seven and eight were sitting on dilapidated benches and all the students from child development class to six were studying on the floor.

The classes of seven and eight, which now have desks and benches, collected Rs. 20,000 rupees from the parents to arrange the furniture for students, he said.

He said that even though the building was being constructed, the students had been studying in dust-filled room for four years due to the lack of desk and benches in the rooms.

As students have to sit and study on the ground, their uniforms get dirty very quickly. They have been bringing pieces of wood or stone from home and putting them on the floor to sit on them. 

There are 220 students in the school. Principal Rawat said that when he asked the government and non-government bodies working in the ward and rural municipality in education sectors for the desk and bench, none responded. 

Earlier, only classes up to five was taught in that school. While the children here have to go to Saraswati Secondary School of Jair, Suryodaya Secondary School of Adanchuli Rural Municipality, in Srinagar or Mugu district, to study classes upwards of five, Debel Primary School has taken permission to teach up to class 8. 

The school management said that despite increasing the number of classrooms, the dire shortage of physical infrastructure has affected both teaching and learning.