Jajarkot school lacks infrastructure, drinking water

BY BASUDEV SHARMA,Jajarkot, June 18: In Himalaya Primary School, located in Mangsiri, Nalgad Municipality-8, mid-day meals are prepared in the classroom, which affects teaching and learning activities.

Due to the school’s remote location, the lack of physical infrastructure and shortage of drinking water have created difficulties for the students.

It takes two days on foot to reach the school from the district headquarters, and approximately six hours from Nalgad Municipality's administrative center. 

The school, which offers classes from Grade 1 to 5, currently has 72 students and five teachers, including assistants. Established in 1982 to provide education to children in the village, the school continues to operate despite lacking basic infrastructure and drinking water facilities.

 According to teacher Manod Sharma, when a two-room building was constructed about three years ago under the Presidential Educational Reform Programme, teachers had to carry water in jars to facilitate the construction.

According to Sharma, due to the shortage of both buildings and drinking water, children are forced to bring water from home. The school’s water source lies below the school building, making it difficult to collect water. Despite repeatedly requesting assistance from concerned authorities regarding physical infrastructure and drinking water, the problems remain unresolved.

Sharma added that even after appealing to Dambar Bahadur Rawat, the mayor of Nalgad Municipality, to arrange drinking water at the school, no action has been taken. Requests made to concerned authorities and the local government to solve the drinking water problem have been ignored, causing the issue to worsen.

The local residents have expressed dissatisfaction, saying that instead of addressing essential needs such as infrastructure, water, and education quality, the local government has reamained indifferent.

According to Tej Bahadur Singh, Chairman of Ward No. 8, appeals have been made to the municipality for infrastructure improvement and drinking water management, but no action has been taken.

Due to the negligence of the concerned authorities and local government, classrooms are being used both for teaching and for preparing mid-day meals, forcing students to vacate classrooms during meal preparation. Though donor agencies and organisations working to improve educational and physical facilities have been approached with proposals for bringing drinking water, the issue remains neglected after initial discussions.

 As the local government has failed to allocate necessary budgets based on needs, the school continues to struggle with structural deficiencies. Even though education, health, and agriculture receive priority in the annual budget, schools in remote villages still struggle with significant issues due to insufficient funding.