A basic school in ward 4 of Kapurkot Rural Municipality, Salyan, has been left without students this academic year, 15 years after it was established. Saraswati Basic School, which ran classes from early childhood development to grade 5, once enrolled around 100 children.

According to local authorities, many families in the area migrated to Dang’s Tulsipur and other places while other parents chose private schools that gradually emptied the classrooms in the community school.

Last year, the school had no students in grades 1 to 5, with only a handful attending the early childhood development centre. This year, even that section has no enrollment.

“We are still reporting to the school every day despite having no students,” said Deepa Gharti, an early childhood development teacher at the school. “The government introduced enrolment drives, mid-day meals and other programmes to retain children in community schools, but those efforts have gone in vain here.”

Gharti said many farming families sent their children to study in Dang, believing private schools offered better education and facilities. Some remaining students transferred to nearby schools.

The rural municipality has already reassigned two teachers from the school to other institutions. Gharti and an office assistant still report daily, sign the register at 9:30am and remain there until early afternoon, except on public holidays.

Prem Bahadur Bista, chief of the education section at Kapurkot Rural Municipality, said preparations are under way to merge the school formally. Furniture and other materials worth hundreds of thousands of rupees will be transferred to another community school once the process is completed.

“We delayed the merger because students in remote settlements face difficulties travelling long distances,” said Bista. “But migration has made it impossible to sustain some schools.”

Similar trends have been reported in other parts of Salyan in recent years. Outmigration, falling birth rates and the attraction of private schools have weakened enrolment in rural community schools across the country.

Education experts have long warned that unchecked school mergers in remote areas could increase dropout risks for younger children, especially where difficult terrain and poor transport force students to walk for hours to reach the nearest functioning school each day.