School withholds scholarship for three years

Rampur (Palpa), Nov 14: A primary school located at Deurali VDC has withheld an amount provided by the government for a scholarship scheme meant for poor students for the past three years.

Many students were forced to drop out of the school as they could not receive the promised scholarship. Parents have said that the students were forced to leave after Rainadevi Primary School at Deurali VDC stopped doling out the scholarship.

The government had allocated an amount for an annual 400 scholarships in order to attract students from poor economic class including the communities from the back-burner.

In a mindboggling revelation, a woman teacher is found to have received 23 months' salary in a single package.

The school was opened in 2046 BS at the initiative of the local villagers with an objective not to deprive backward community students from receiving education. The current official status shows that there are a total of 18 students admitted to the school.

Local villager, Kamal Nepal, claimed that the school's future is uncertain as the school's management committee has not been holding regular meetings. He added that the school's plight is compounded by lack of financial transparency and principal's failure to heed towards the need to call regular meetings with parents.

School's Principal, Kalpana Acharya, said the three years' scholarship was distributed on September 9. Locals say that the school management committee has not held a single meeting since fiscal year 2013/14.

There are three students in Grade 3, the official documents show, while Grade 2 has six students and Grade 1 has eight students, but the number of students attending regular classes is very low.

Principal Acharya conceded that the concrete school building is yet to accommodate a toilet. Acharya was recruited on a permanent official status of the government while another woman teacher, Yog Maya Nepal, is working on temporary status.

District Education Office's Communications Official, Mahendra Subedi, said they had received complaints that the school was not distributing the scholarship on a regular basis and assured of commencement of the process for formation of a new management committee.