A local unit in Rukum (West) has come up with a concrete work plan to compensate for the school classes missed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Aathbiskot Municipality has decided to run physical classes all seven days of the week. As per the municipality’s revised academic calendar, physical classes upto grade nine will run for 155 days and the annual examination will be conducted by mid-May, 2021.

“Starting from December 5, we have decided to run classes on Saturday as well to compensate for classes affected by the novel coronavirus,” said Mayor Gorkha Bahadur KC. According to him, the local unit will also run classes during all holidays except for Holi Poornima that falls on March 28.

Schools in Aathbiskot Municipality started conducting physical classes from November 1 by maintaining health security protocols. Aathbiskot is the second local unit out of six in the district to have prepared a work plan for the academic year. Chaurjahari Municipality, which resumed classes from October, is the first one to prepare an academic work plan following Covid-19 restrictions.

According to the revised academic calendar, all schools have to run full classes on Friday and conduct co-curricular and extra curricular activities on Saturday.

There are a total of 63 community schools, including 20 secondary schools, in Aathbiskot Municipality. All educational institutions in Aathbiskot have been running classes in full swing as scheduled, according to the education unit of the municipal office.

The municipality had asked all school administrations to prepare a proposal for the academic year calendar last month. The proposals were tabled at the executive committee of the municipality through the municipal education committee. The work plan approved by the local unit has included one month of the upcoming academic session in the current academic year to complete the course. The work plan has also decided to launch school enrollment drive in the Nepali month of Baisakh (mid-April to mid-May) and initiate new academic session from mid-May.

“We had confusion regarding the total school days in the current academic year, as schools remained closed for months amid fear of Covid-19. The new work plan approved by the municipality has been useful to dispel the confusion and accelerate learning/teaching activities,” said Chinta Ram Sharma, the headteacher at Aadarsha Secondary School in Aathbiskot. “Our school is effectively implementing the plan.”

The federal Ministry of Education, Science and Technology had issued the School Resumption Working Guideline in November that allows the resumption of schools provided that they coordinate with representatives of the respective local governments, teachers’ unions and representatives from the school management committees. As per the guideline, several local units across the country have resumed physical classes by endorsing their own work plan for the current academic year.