Nepal | Schools reopen in areas worst hit by quakes

A Nepalese boy walks past a collapsed building close to his school in Kathmandu

Thousands of schools across the districts worst hit by two major earthquakes in Nepal reopened yesterday.
With most school buildings damaged or unsafe, the Education Ministry ordered that classes be held in temporary classrooms.
The earthquakes on April 25 and May 12 killed 8,693 people and injured 22,221 others. It’s estimated that more than 90 percent of schools were destroyed in the worst-hit districts of Gorkha, Sindhupalchok and Nuwakot.
According to a UNICEF statement, 32,000 classrooms were destroyed and 15,352 classrooms were damaged after the two major earthquakes in Nepal.
Nepal’s high dropout rate was already a major concern, UNICEF said adding there were estimated 985,000 children who couldn’t return to classes yesterday, thus facing a great risk of dropping out of school.
Niraj Kayanstha, a teacher at Changuranayan school, east of Kathmandu, told state-run Radio Nepal that about half of the 400 students came to school yesterday. They were not studying but singing and dancing and talking to teachers about their experience during the earthquakes.
Government inspectors who were sent to the schools gave green stickers for safe buildings or red stickers for damaged ones. AP