Students facing problems due to lack of power, internet facilities across country

With the outbreak and spread of the second wave of COVID-19 across the country including in the Jajarkot district, all the academic institutions have switched to virtual teaching/learning.

Students like 10th grader Laxmi KC of Nalgad Municipality-8 in the district were supposed to continue with her studies virtually but she has nothing to do during this time for neither there was electricity in her village nor internet facilities.

She keeps herself engaged in assisting her family in household chores and takes her cattle for grazing. The alternative learning method put in place by the government at the time of health crisis like this should have made up for the physical teaching-learning activities at the Schools.

But the provision fails to make any sense in the lives of students like KC for neither has it been a plausible nor a feasible idea in a village-like hers lacking electricity and internet facilities.

To catch up with her academic courses, she makes calls to her friends in district headquarters and town areas through a mobile phone that her family charges through solar power.

“There is no electricity and internet facility. How can we adapt to alternative methods to learn,” fumed KC, expressing worries for her academic pursuit has been impeded for some time now.

Ganesh Bikram Shahi of Barekot Rural Municipality-5 in the district shares a similar fate. His daily routine includes taking care of the household chores and cattle. There was no telephone tower in his village until a month ago which ruled out the possibility for him to make calls to his classmates and update himself like KC.

The recently installed telephone tower of Nepal Telecommunications has ensured telephone service in his village due to which he could stay connected to his classmates and teachers.

Although virtual classes were being run in the town areas and students were benefitted, alternative learning methods had not made any impact here, he lamented.

According to him, the students in the district headquarters and urban areas in the district seem to have optimized the information technology for learning activities but those in villages and remote areas have been bereft of education at the time like this when prohibitory order is imposed in several parts of the country to contain the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.

Kaman Khadka of Luhadaha in Junichade Rural Municipality-7 shared, “There is a risk of COVID-19 in the village. We cannot just go around the village without protective measures or without any urgency/emergency. There is no point in staying idly at home. In lack of electricity and internet, there is no possibility of pursuing academic activities either. Hence, we have been a homebody and doing nothing beyond household chores.”

KC, Shahi, and Khadka are among the 81,238 students recorded in the district where there are 416 community schools and 26 institutional schools. These students were supposed to carry on with teaching/ learning activities virtually since the enforcement of the prohibitory order.