Kathmandu, January 25. The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has given the go ahead to all schools under it to run classes, 10 months after they were closed over the risk of coronavirus pandemic. The schools were closed since March 20, 2020 and they have been given permission to reopen since Sunday, January 24, 2021.

A meeting of the KMC’s Education Committee on Sunday made this decision. KMC Mayor and Committee Chair, Bidya Sundar Shakya, said all schools have been informed about the decision and they have been asked to make arrangements for running classes by preparing school operation modality based on the health safety protocols issued by the Ministry of health and Population.

Mayor Shakya shared that schools would operate as per Health Safety Standards issued by the Ministry of Health and ‘Guidelines for Facilitation of Student Learning through Alternative System, 2020’, under the monitoring and supervision of the school management committee and the guardians association.

Although some of the institutional schools within KMC had opened since the last week of November, the community schools had only partly opened.

The meeting also gave permission to the Saraswoti Niketan Secondary School at KMC Ward no. 12, Brahmatol and the Shivapuri Secondary School at Maharajgunj, KMC Ward no 3 to run classes in computer engineering subject and to the Vishwo Niketan Secondary School at KMC Ward no 11 to run classes in electrical engineering.

This technical education programme is taught from Grade 9 to 12. KMC has given grant of Rs 5 million to these schools for construction of physical infrastructures and managing the human resources to run the programme.

There are 91 community and 541 institutional schools in KMC.