As per the education regulation, school management committee must be in place in each school within one month after the academic session begins.[break]
Adarsha Higher Secondary School in the district headquarters, Kankai Higher Secondary School at Danabari, Jyoti Secondary School at Chisapani, Saraswati Secondary School at Laxmipur and Ivang Secondary School at Ivang are running without management committees for a long time.
Efforts to constitute the committees have been fruitless as local leaders belonging to the political parties, including UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and Federal Limbuwan State Council, all claim their stake in the committee.
Dhan Bahadur Magar, principal at the Janta secondary school, said talks to form the committee at the school remained inconclusive even after two rounds of guardians´ meetings for the purpose. "The meetings ended inconclusively as political leaders didn´t budge from their claims for leadership in the committee," Magar said.
Similar is the case at Ivang secondary school. "Frequent meetings have become fruitless due to the political parties´ stances," said Bijay Kumar Budhathoki, principal of the school.
Political parties want to have their influential members in the committees as they strive for power. The management of the 75 schools in the district have been handed over to the local communities recently.
Absence of the school management committees has a direct impact on regular operation of the schools in so far as the selection and appointment of teachers, their transfers and financial matters, among others, are concerned.
"These days we have to seek consent from political parties before taking any decision. Had there been management committee, its members would have settled the matters," Budhathoki said.
Chairman of Teachers´ Union, Purna Gautam, said the situation arose as political leaders turned to the schools as platforms to run their political activities regardless of the fact that schools were purely academic bodies.
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