Shortages of subject teachers in community schools across Karnali, the country’s biggest and remotest province, have paralysed classroom teaching, forcing thousands of students preparing for the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) to depend on private tuition centres. School administrators, education authorities and people’s representatives admit that they are at their wit’s end with the chronic issue.

Rupadevi Secondary School in Naraharinath-7 of Kalikot district advertised for a mathematics teacher for the 19th time on November 16. Since April, the school has repeatedly issued vacancy notices at 15-day intervals under the federal grant quota, but not a single application has been received.

“No matter how many times we advertise, no one applies,” said Dhan Bahadur Budha, headmaster at Rupadevi Secondary School. “Without teachers, the syllabus is never completed and students are compelled to sit the SEE relying entirely on private tuition classes.”

Established in 1978, the school currently has 375 students but runs largely on three permanent primary-level posts. To keep classes going, according to Budha, it has hired 13 teachers using municipal grants and private resources.

A similar problem persists at Kalika Secondary School in Shubhakalika Rural Municipality-2, Kalikot, where repeated advertisements last academic year failed to attract a science teacher at the secondary level. As a result, the federal grant allocated for science teaching for the 2024–25 academic year remained frozen.

Provincial data shows the scale of the crisis. Across Karnali, 4,993 teachers’ posts from grades 1 to 10 are currently vacant. Of the 2,931 community schools in the province, only 11,865 teachers are in approved teachers’ posts. According to the education division of the Ministry of Social Development, the shortages include 644 teachers at the primary level, 2,600 at the basic level and 1,749 at the secondary level.

“There is an acute lack of English, mathematics and science teachers,” said senior education officer Balbir Sunar at the division. “Because of this, almost every school fails to complete courses of at least one subject, which directly contributes to weak SEE results year after year.” At the secondary level, 1,414 posts are approved, of which 1,360 are filled, while 854 teachers are working under temporary, relief or private arrangements.

With courses incomplete, students are turning to privately-operated tuition centres. At Kalika Secondary School in Tilagupha Municipality-4, Kalikot, most of the 33 grade 10 students left for Surkhet soon after the Tihar festival, said principal Chakra Bahadur Shahi. “We are teaching secondary classes with lower-level teachers, and even then only half the syllabus is covered so far,” he said. “Going to Surkhet or the district headquarters Manma for tuition has become almost a trend. Students return only in February or March to sit the SEE.” Last year, only one out of the total 34 regular students from the school passed the SEE.

Samir Shahi, a grade 10 student at Shivalaya Secondary School in Tilagupha, said he moved to Surkhet in November second week. “There was no sign the syllabus would be completed in the village,” he said. “After Dashain and the winter break, classes stopped altogether. I realised staying back would not be enough for SEE preparation.” Another student, Kamal Dhakal, said nearly a dozen classmates from his school were attending tuition with him.

Tuition centres in Birendranagar, the provincial headquarters, are now overcrowded with students from Kalikot, Mugu and Jumla districts. These centres charge around Rs3,500 per subject per student. Tilak Prasad Neupane, headteacher of Mahadev Secondary School in Kalikot, said that while 30 students attended regular classes before Dashain, most have since left for tuition. “About 60 to 80 percent of the syllabus is complete,” he said. “If we could manage extra classes locally, parents’ expenses would fall and learning outcomes would improve, but schools alone cannot stop this outflow.”

Tilagupha Mayor Shankar Prasad Upadhyay said the lack of subject teachers, cold weather and a mindset that favours studying outside the village make it difficult to retain students. “Students spend at least four months in Surkhet and about Rs10,000 to Rs12,000 per month,” he said. “Most parents here are poor and are forced to borrow money to educate their children.”

In a bid to break the trend of the students going outside the district, some local units have begun offering free coaching. Hima Rural Municipality in Jumla decided to run free SEE coaching at three designated schools in November, said acting chief administrative officer Bam Bahadur Shah. “Students no longer need to go to Surkhet for tuition,” he said, adding that the rural municipality covers teachers’ remuneration during the winter break.

A study last year by the Education Development Directorate found that schools in mountainous districts complete barely 60 percent of the syllabus by the end of the academic year. Acting education director Deepa Hamal said shortages of teachers and infrastructure, delays in textbooks and irregular attendance have steadily eroded Karnali’s education quality.

In last year’s SEE, 20,384 of 35,061 examinees from Karnali failed, and 46 schools recorded zero passes. SEE results showed failure rates as high as 82.6 percent in Dailekh, 66.4 percent in Surkhet, 61.65 percent in Kalikot, 57.2 percent in Dolpa, 56.7 percent in Mugu, 53.7 percent of Humla and 50.81 percent in Salyan, underlining a deepening crisis in the province.

Narayan Paudel, a section officer at the Education Development and Coordination Unit in Surkhet, argues that local governments have struggled to handle school education after the adoption of federalism.

“Most of the budget now goes directly to local units, which means they are responsible for building infrastructure, adjusting teacher quotas, and measuring and regulating the quality of education,” he said. “However, local bodies have failed to even draft a clear roadmap for improving school education, and this has resulted in disorder and a steady decline in educational standards.”