DOLAKHA, September 3: Newly-elected people's representatives have started acting tough to improve the quality of education in Dolakaha in recent days. Shailung Rural Municipality has decided to close down various community schools which were running without enough students and adjusted the 'irrelevant teachers' quota.
An executive meeting of the rural municipality on Tuesday decided to get rid of three primary level schools operating without any students while transferring one school to a more populous region.
Bharat Dulal, chief of Shailung Rural Municipality, said, "We decided to monitor 38 community schools and three associated schools using our sources and elected local representatives. Then, we had a meeting to discuss their report findings with parents and principals of those schools."
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He informed Republica that they agreed to close down schools having less than twenty students while schools having 30 students will only have one teacher.
Rameshwor Upreti, ward chairperson of Shailung-3 and coordinator of Municipal Monitoring Committee said that the meeting decided to transfer teachers of 18 community schools.
According to Upreti, Siddheshwor Primary School has been merged with Pipaldada Lower Secondary School for having fewer students and teachers. The teachers have been transferred to other schools, according to the rural municipality.
Basundhara Primary School was closed down after only two teachers were teaching eleven students. Both teachers were transferred to two secondary schools in Fasku village. Jukeshwari Primary School was also closed due to lack of enough students. Chandika Primary School was transferred to a populous region.
However, various teacher associations have gone against the decision taken by the rural municipality. District chairman of the Teachers Union, Govinda Narayan Manandhar, said, "This is an autocratic decision as it goes against the constitution. Although the constitution states that rural municipalities have the right to oversee local level education until secondary level, there is neither a working procedure mentioned nor a law written about it."
The rural municipality has issued a circular to the District Education Office about implementing their decision. "The District Education Office and District Education Committee have the power to make this decision as there is neither working procedure nor law about it in the constitution" said District Education Officer Bhakta Bahadur Godar.
