Over 2 lakh children leave Private Schools to join Govt. Schools

Mukunda Gaire / Kathmandu, July 6: People dependent on income from small and sustenance enterprises have been returning to the village from the city as their source of income was shut down due to COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns.

With the source of income closed, people are transferring their children from private schools to government ones due to lack of income source, for education is free in government schools while private ones take hefty fees.

Chairman of Private and Boarding Schools’ Organization Nepal (PABSON) Tikaram Puri said that number of students in the private schools has been continually decreasing lately due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that students in the various cities including Kathmandu have been decreasing as people are returning to the village as they are compelled to close businesses and leave various professions.

He said the trend to leave private schools by students increased following the second wave of COVID-19 and subsequent prohibitory order enforced to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Puri said that 20 to 25 percent of students of private schools in Kathmandu have left the schools.

He said that the number has been rising and people from other cities also have been taking their children to government school.

The PABSON chair said that people are engaged in daily labor, business on the footpath, and jobs have returned to the village due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Educationist Bidya Nath Koirala says people are found entering the city when they have money and also when they do not have money.

Koirala says that people with money come to cities to seek various facilities and people who do not have money come to cities in search of an income-generating job.

He says that time has come to provide an environment for the creation of jobs and medium of living in the village by federal, provincial, and local governments

People come to struggle in the city with the sole purpose of educating their children.

There is a need for improvement in the quality of education in the government school of villages.

He says that the availability of the internet and other various material required for the study in the government school will rise attraction to the government schools.

In addition to the use of technology for the improvement of education, there is also a need for teachers to be updated accordingly, said Dr. Koirala.

Dipak Sharma, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, informed that over two hundred thousand students have left private schools and joined the government ones in the last two years.

Lately, the trend to join government schools by leaving the private ones has increased and it might be for different reasons including financial and others.

Meanwhile, the government has prioritized the education sector and allocated the budget accordingly.

Some 180 billion rupees have been allocated for the education sector in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year of 2021/2022.

The government has announced free books to students up to grade 12 studying in government schools.

The government has also announced that all government schools will have access to free internet services within two years. The government also provides day meal for students up to grade 5 in government schools and recruit a health professional in each and every government schools for regular health checkup of the students.