Over 3,000 students in north Mugu still in wait of textbooks
Mugu / June 4: Two months have passed since the new academic session begun in almost all districts of the country including Mugu. But, students at Soru rural municipality, the northern part of Mugu, are constrained to attend the classes without textbooks as those stationeries and distributers in contract with book suppliers failed to ensure a timely supply so far.
However other three local levels of the district have already received textbooks. Soru rural municipality has 41 schools and they are waiting for textbooks from past two months. “Teachers take the help of some old books available to teach us. We visited the district headquarters Gamgadhi in search of books, but no avail. We are deprived of revision at home due to lack of textbooks.
In this situation, self-study is not possible. It is really painful for us,” said Purna Shani, a tenth grader at the Bhawani Secondary School, Purumuru. The Janak Education Materials Centre, Karnali State, Surkhet Office is responsible for supplying textbooks from grade one to five to the district, while Gamgadhi-based KB, Jayalaxmi, Trishakti and Abinash stationery and supplies have owned up the responsibility of importing and distributing textbooks to all the schools at Chhayanath Rara municipality and Mugum Karmarong and Soru rural municipalities.
In the first phase, textbooks were supplied to schools at Chhayanath Rara municipality and Mugum Karmarong rural municipality. But textbooks meant for Soru-based 41 schools are stuck at the Surkhet-based New Manakamana Dhuwani Sewa (a supplier company) for various reasons. KB stationery proprietor Keshab Chaulagain admitted that schools at Soru have not got textbooks yet as the transportation gets delayed. The Khatyang rural municipality received textbooks before the beginning of academic session.
Bijay Secondary School teacher Bir Bahadur Bam shared that 2,864 primary students and 605 secondary students at Soru have been deprived of textbooks which has its impact on their performance. Without textbooks, most students have to spend their time in games, he added. RSS