Ilam. The school enrollment campaign should start with the onset of Baisakh. However, teachers are on strike after schools across the country have closed. After the government addresses their demands, teachers will return, schools will open and students will be admitted. However, parents in the northern part of Ilam do not have much hope. Since there is no school in their place, they are more worried about where to educate their children than the interest in the movement.
‘They say teachers’ agitation, they say the Education Act. We have to go to India to educate our children,’ said Numa Sherpa of Maijogmai Rural Municipality-5, Megma. ‘There is not a single school in the village. No one understood the pain of sending children to another country to educate themselves.’ Not only her, but most parents in the Lekali region of northern Ilam are forced to educate their children in various schools in India. All the children of the villages here, including Jaubari, Tumling, Megma, Alebhanjyang, Nunthala, Ingla, Garibas, etc., have had to be sent to Indian schools.
Children from the Indian border areas are forced to study in India after community schools were closed due to lack of students. In these places, which have sparse settlements and low population density, after schools were closed for a few years, parents have been forced to go to India to educate their children from the primary level, said Sonam Sherpa of Jaubari. “It is far to drive from home. Since last year, I have been teaching my granddaughter in my room there,” said 69-year-old Nim Lamu of Sandakpur Rural Municipality-5, Kalpokhari.
It has been eight years since the National Primary School in Jaubari was closed. The school, which used to provide education from grades 1 to 5, was closed in 2072 BS due to lack of students. “After many children from the border area started being sent to Indian schools, there was a shortage of students in these schools. Up to 80 children used to come to study in that school. After that, no initiative has been taken to establish that school,” she said. Currently, about 15 children from this area study at Ribs School in Manebhanjyang. Doma Sherpa, who has taken a room in Manebhanjyang to educate her children, said that it costs 18 to 20 thousand rupees per month.
Not only in Jaubari, but also Saraswati Primary School in Megma, Maijogmai-2, a primary school in Kalpokhari, Sandakpur-5, and another primary school in Majuwa, Sandakpur-5 have been closed, informed Pasang Tshiring Sherpa, former principal of the National Primary School Jaubari.
Thukten Lama of Jaubari informed that after his children were admitted to Indian schools, the schools on the Nepal side were closed due to lack of students. The Lama is sad that taking students to India in this way not only costs money, but also Nepali children do not know about Nepal’s nationality and self-respect. The closed schools have become dilapidated. The Armed Police Force was stationed in the National Primary School in Jaubari a year ago. The Armed Police Force has built its building near the school while staying in that school. The concerned bodies have not shown interest in operating schools in the border area so far.
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