Patan school built back better

The 2015 earthquake damaged 7,923 schools and 49,681 classrooms in 14 districts in Central Nepal. Of these, 6,085 schools have been rebuilt and another 1,468 are under construction.

Among the ones that have been rebuilt is one of the oldest schools in the country, Patan Secondary School, which was handed over to school management on 19 April by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-backed Emergency Reconstruction Project.

Designed on a Japanese school architecture template, it is meant to be a model ‘complete school’ with multi-hazard resilient structures, the school has a concrete foundation raft designed to withstand magnitude 8 earthquakes, rainwater harvesting system and solar power.

The Rs 320 million building with its distinctive clock tower has already become a Patan landmark. Inside, it has classrooms for Early Childhood Development up to Grade 12, separate laboratories for computer science, physics, biology and chemistry, a retrofitted and restored Rana-era conference hall, and bathrooms and hand-washing stations with adequate water supply.

Despite the major face-lift, the school, like many other refurbished government schools across Nepal, has however, not seen a reshaping of the administrative and educational methods.

Reconstructed schools like Patan Secondary School have a shortage of teachers and students to fill new classrooms, as well as maintenance budgets from the Education Ministry.

Federal and state interference in the local-level educational process is stifling progress, as teaching standards in government schools are not improved, curricula remain outdated and teachers are underpaid and unmotivated despite the flashy new buildings.

While post-quake reconstruction should have diverted attention from infrastructure to quality of instruction and future disaster preparedness, that has not been the case. As Covid-19 pushes education towards distance learning, improved infrastructure alone will not be able to guarantee the delivery of quality education.

“The 2015 earthquake and this pandemic could have been an opportunity to upgrade both hardware and software of our education system, but the teaching standards have instead, downgraded,” says RajendraDahal, editor of Shikshyak monthly.

Nepali Times recently surveyed some schools around the Valley which showed that despite the seismic-resistant design, newly-rebuilt schools in and around Kathmandu lack preparedness drills leaving school-goers vulnerable despite the sturdy structures.

“Given the scale of the 2015 earthquake, our reconstruction process has been quite satisfactory but we are not prepared enough for future mega-quakes,” says Surya Narayan Shrestha, executive director of the National Society of Earthquake Technology (NSET) Nepal.