The students of Maahindri Secondary School of Byas Municipality-9 have complained of not receiving the amount of their scholarship. The Dalit and girl students have not received their scholarship for the academic session of 2020/21.
On the contrary, the school administration has assured that all the students have received scholarships for the academic session.
The school has not provided the amount despite the provision of giving it within the year 2020/21. However, they have already submitted the receipt of the scholarship amount in the municipality.
Every year, the government has been providing scholarship amount of NRs. 400 to every girl till grade eight and to every Dalit student till grade ten.
However, even though the receipt of the scholarship is available, none of them have received the scholarship amount yet.
Kranti Acharya, a student of grade eight has confirmed that she signed a receipt of the scholarship but has not received any amount to date.
“Our teachers made us sign the paperwork for the scholarship,” she added, ‘but the money has not been received yet.” Her guardian Raju Acharya also said that she had not received the scholarship.
The principal of the school, Prakash Kafle, said that most of the students’ scholarships have been deducted from their admission fee.
He explained that in the previous year, all the students were admitted without any charges due to COVID-19, the admission fee has been deducted from the scholarship amount. He clarified that those who had paid for the admission would receive the amount of scholarship.
The school charges up to NRs 300 per student for their admission, informed Kafle. He added that the scholarship money was spent on some books even when they were provided free of cost.
Kafle said that, in the past, there was a provision of scholarship for excellent students but now the scholarships have stopped. According to Principal Kafle, 125 students would have received that scholarship.
Chief of the Education Branch of Byas Municipality, Nagendra Regmi, said that the scholarship amount could not be withheld under any context.
He added that he would look for further information regarding this issue with the principal of the school.