Kathmandu,
02 February 2006 (IRIN)
The climate in schools for many children is one of fear, both of abductions by Maoist rebels and of the soldiers stationed outside schools by the security forces. The lack of teachers in schools also means that many classes are not held.
"The situation with regard to education has become so bad that it will take several decades to restore what we had achieved before the conflict started," said Dipendra Roka, a schoolteacher in Salle village in Rukum district, about 300 km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund, Nepal has an adult literacy rate of only 42 percent. The percentage of illiterate females, it says, is far higher.
Although 82 percent of children are officially enrolled at Nepal's schools nationally, almost half of them are reported by NGOs to drop out of school during the first two years. Nearly three-quarters leave before the completion of primary school. Only around 10 percent complete secondary school education.
His main job was to visit schools and expose both teachers and students to the Maoists' ideology. Five months ago, he escaped and took refuge in a district centre, where he now works at the high school. He fears for his life: if Maoist insurgents find him, he says he will be executed for desertion.
Since the conflict began in Nepal in February 1996, teachers in the villages have been targeted by both the rebels and the security forces. According to the Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC), a leading Nepali human rights group, at least 141 teachers have been killed during the conflict - 84 by the rebels, and the rest by the security forces.
Schools have shut down when rebels wanted to pressure the government to release rebel cadres, or force some other concession from the Kathmandu government. Maoists attack the security forces. According to a 2005 report by the Asian Centre for Human Rights, both the Royal Nepalese Army and the Maoists have been involved in direct attacks on schools. It reported incidents of students having been killed in aerial bombing, as well as random firing into school compounds where Maoists were organising cultural programmes. Similarly, there were also reports of the Maoists targeting schools. The Asian Centre for Human Rights recorded that between February and May 2005, the rebels attacked 23 schools, bombing six rural schools in one day alone in Rukum. Private boarding schools in urban areas have not escaped unscathed. Many have been targeted and subject to extortion. According to local NGO, Child Workers in Nepal, nearly 3,000 schools were closed between January and October 2005, due to strikes called by the Maoist's student's union. "Our only hope now is [to have] proper government in place. Only a peaceful resolution to the conflict can save education of our children," explained teacher Narjit Basnet, whose left hand was chopped off by the Maoists several years ago after he refused to join them. "All I have now is my strong will to teach my students to the best of my ability," he said at his class in the rundown school in Salle. Copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006 [ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations] Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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