The government of Nepal has instructed the concerned authorities to commence enrollment process from today but the students in Dang district seem to be hesitant to go to schools that were once turned into quarantine facilities for COVID-19 suspected persons.

Although those schools were disinfected and readied for teaching learning activities, both the parents and students are hesitant to go to school, said Secondary School Centre, Tulsipur’s principal Bhagawat Poudel.

With the growing cases of COVID-19 in the country and lack of quarantine facilities, the government since May 23 had decided to convert schools into the quarantine facilities to house people suspected to have contracted the flu-like infection.
Principal Poudel shared that the enrollment rate in the schools witnessed a slump this year. “Around 1,500 to 1,600 students ought to come to school for admission during this time but only 6,00 to 7,00 students were arriving for enrollment,” shared Poudel, adding that apprehensive parents and students were being given counselling.
According to him, the parents and students have been told that there was no risk of COVID-19 in the school since the school has already been disinfected.”

Similarly, Janata Secondary School at Bijauri’s principal Padma Bahadur Rawat shared that they had been making door-to-door visits to the parents and taking admission for the school-going children.

Gurujajur Secondary School at Tulsipur has also seen decrease in the influx of the students for enrollment for this new academic session. The school was also used as a quarantine facility until sometime ago.

It was properly sanitized and thus poses no risk for of COVID-19 to anyone, said student Sarita Bhandari, who has been facing a hard time convincing parents and students not to fear from coming to school.

The Tulsipur Sub-Metropolitan City has taken up a policy to reach out to the students in an open space in every human settlement and resume the stalled teaching learning activities by maintaining social distance and adhering to other health safety protocol to prevent the risk of the deadly infection.

All schools were shut down following a nation-wide lockdown ordered by the federal government since March 24 to contain the spread of COVID-19.

The schools that were turned into quarantine facilities have now been emptied and sanitized to resume the teaching learning activities, shared Tulsipur Sub-Metropolitan City’s Officiating Chief Administrator, Bhaskar Gautam. But the dwindling number of students in the admission process has appeared to be cause for concern among the school management.