May 5: The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology had issued a circular last month asking all schools across the country to conduct final examinations and publish results of last academic session by mid-May and start new academic session after that.

The government has decided to start academic session one month later than previous years’ schedule because of COVID-19 pandemic.  In line with the decision of the federal government, local governments have also instructed schools of their territory to do accordingly. However, many private schools have already resumed and some are planning to start new session of their respective schools in a few days. It shows that private schools are starting academic session about 15 days ahead of the public schools.

Eureka Secondary School, Nepaltaar, Kathmandu, has resumed its classes of new session from Monday. Horizon Academy, Machhhegaun, started its new classes a week ago. Likewise, Learning Realm International School, Kalanki, has also decided to operate its classes from Wednesday.

Those private schools have stated that it is not necessary to start academic session late because their classes were not disturbed as government schools because they operated classes virtually even in the pandemic.

D.K. Dhungana, chairperson of the Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation Nepal, also said it is not mandatory to start academic session on the same day across the country because schools started academic session at their own time even in previous academic session because of COVID-19 pandemic.

Though many private schools already resumed classes of the new academic session, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has published the schedule of new academic session from May 20.

Ram Prasad Subedi, education department head of the KMC, informed that they asked schools to publish the result of last academic session by this week and urged to enroll students only after that. According to Subedi, the KMC has scheduled new academic session after May 20.

About the earlier start of new session by private schools, Subedi said it was not going to halt the classes of private schools for now if they can operate classes from now. Subedi further said that though private schools run classes and conduct examinations at their own time for other classes there is uniformity in grade 8, grade 10 and grade 12 examinations.

Mahendra Chhetri, education department head of Lalitpur, said they have not yet published a separate schedule for new academic session, they have also been preparing to start it soon after local polls as instructed by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology earlier.

Chhetri also takes it positively and accepted that some private schools have started their classes already even in Lalitpur.

Academic session across the country was disrupted since last two years as schools could not conduct physical classes because of COVID-19 pandemic. Schools had started academic session virtually and physically according to their ability. From this year, the government has initiated to run academic session in normal way by starting the academic session 15 days later than previous years.

source:risingnepal, 5 May 2022