Reconstruction of 4,476 schools completes

Kathmandu, April 23: The reconstruction of 4,476 schools that were damaged by the April 25, 2015 Gorkha Earthquake and its subsequent aftershocks has been completed so far.

The Central Project Implementation Unit (Education) stated that out of these reconstructed school structures, 3,583 were rebuilt through the school management committees, 135 were rebuilt through the construction entrepreneurs and 758 were rebuilt by the non-governmental organizations.

This information was shared in a programme on the status of reconstruction of schools after the Gorkha earthquake organized by the Education Journalists Network Nepal (EJON) here on Monday. Unit’s chief Im Narayan Shrestha said that additional 1,222 schools are being reconstructed through the school management committees, 338 schools are being rebuilt through the construction entrepreneurs and 212 schools are being reconstructed through the NGOs.

He said a total 6,646 schools, including 398 additional schools that would be selected, are being reconstructed. Seven thousand nine hundred and twenty-three schools were damaged due to the disaster in the 32 districts affected the most by the earthquake. Twenty-one thousand one hundred sixty nine classrooms at these schools were completely damaged.

The Asian Development Bnak (ADB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), China, India and other countries have been providing assistance for the reconstruction of schools. Shrestha said the reconstruction of all the earthquake-damaged schools would be completed by the end of the current fiscal year 2018/2019 and an estimated Rs 90 billion will be required for this.

Among the problems in school reconstruction, Shrestha maintained the paucity of budget in which the Government of Nepal is the source and the difficulty in acquiring land for schools for constructing additional structures. RSS