DOTI, May 26: Unlike in the past, the school students in Doti are much happy to be at school rather than at home these days. The reason: nowadays all they do at school is play games. The regular bandas enforced by various groups in the far-west region has badly affected the supply of the students´ textbooks. Lower secondary and secondary level students in all the hill districts of the region have not received textbooks yet.
“As there are no textbooks, the children while away their time playing at school,” said Chakraraj Joshi, headmaster at Bishnu Secondary School, Baralgaun, Doti. “We were waiting for the books to arrive but it never reached here due to bandas. There is no end in sight to the bandas that have been going on for about a month now,” he added.
“It has been a month that we go to school, just play with friends and then return home,” said Balbahadur Sharki, a ninth grader at the school. “What else can we do if there are no books,” he adds.
The situation in other districts like Achchham, Bajura and Bajhang are pretty much the same. Though the new session began a month ago, none of the schools in the districts have been running classes in absence of textbooks.
Khadak Bikram Shahi, who runs a bookstore in Diyal, said, “Teachers, students and parents keep coming to bookstores in the hopes of finding books, but we have not been able to get it here due to banda,” he said.
The head office of Sajha Prakashan, Diyal, is responsible to provide textbooks to its branch offices in other districts. But due to banda the books have not even reached Dhangadhi.
According to Dhangadhi regional office of Sajha Prakashan, two trucks loaded with textbooks are ready to move from Kathmandu but that the books can be dispatched from there only after the banda is called off.
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