By Navin Shishir BK, Baglung, Sept. 27: Tarakhola Rural Municipality in Baglung district has started traditional classes in schools within the local level's jurisdiction from today due to lack of easy access to the radio, internet and television for the people to run and learn from virtual classes as urged by the federal government.

Sabita Kumari KC, education officer of the rural municipality, informed that village education committee had decided to run schools adopting school health safety standards.

She said that as there were no active cases of COVID-19 in the rural municipality, classes and teaching learning activities from grades 1-5 would be run regularly while those from 6-12 would be run on odd-even number basis.

She said top precaution would be maintained while conducting teaching learning activities in the schools.

Washing hands with soap and water, using face mask and sanitisers are made mandatory before entering schools.

As the number of students in primary level is very low, only two students would be seated on a bench to maintain physical distancing, according to education officer KC.

Ganesh Gharti, a teacher of Argal Secondary School, said that teaching learning activities would be run on the basis of Student Learning Facilitation Directive 2077, issued by Education Ministry, and Curriculum Adjustment Framework 2077, issued by Curriculum Development Center, and also that homework checking and evaluation would be done on the same basis.

"There is no facility of internet, television and radio in our rural municipality," said Prakash Gharti, Chairman of the Rural Municipality, adding, "Now, there is no alternative than to run schools adopting high precaution."

He said schools would be shut down in case of detection of infection of the novel coronavirus in any person in the local level.

There are 14 primary schools (Grade 1-5), three basic schools (1-8) and six secondary schools (1-10) and three higher secondary schools (1-12) in Tarakhola Rural Municipality.

The classes in the schools will be run from 10 am to 2 pm, instead of usual 10 am to 4 pm school time.

Kushmaraj Updhyay, Chief of Baglung district's education development and coordination unit, said that of 10 local levels in the district, no other local levels except for Tarakhola, has started to run regular traditional classes in schools although they were conducting teaching learning activities by means of online classes, street education and teaching learning at learning centers.