I first met Dipesh in 2015, right after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake had hit Sindhupalchowk district in Nepal, where he lives. 

Sindhupalchowk was one of the areas worst affected by the earthquake, which killed over 9,000 people. Dipesh was 11 years old then. He is now 15 and a student in class 8 at Shree Mahendrodaya Higher Secondary School. 

After living in a makeshift shelter for three years, Dipesh and his family moved into their new home, rebuilt with financial support from the government.

Displaced education

Since the earthquake, Dipesh has had to change classrooms a couple of times. First, he attended a transitional learning center (temporary classroom) made of bamboo, wood and tarpaulin, and now his school is a five-story building that did not collapse from the earthquake but suffered some damages. 

When his current classroom undergoes repair, he will need to change classrooms again, either to another transitional structure or to the new earthquake-proof two-story building currently under construction.

Despite all these challenges, Dipesh is at the top of his class. I was extremely happy to find him in his classroom four years on, especially since Dipesh is from a disadvantaged background and also at his age, it is not uncommon for boys to be working.

Like Dipesh, Matisha is a student in Sindhupalchowk district. Matisha, her sister and mother Binita were at home when the earthquake struck nearly five years ago. The stairs and the back of their house fell down the steep hillside.

Trapped in the house, they were rescued by Matisha’s father and neighbors, who helped them climb out of their house through the window.

At Matisha’s school, which welcomed 1,400 students, 44 out 50 classrooms were destroyed.

But within a month, the girls were able to go back to school in a temporary learning center on the school grounds, a remarkable feat by the government and development partners given the scale of the destruction.

A swift response after the destruction

Since the earthquakes, the Government of Nepal has made considerable progress in providing learning spaces for students. The two earthquakes that hit the country in 2015 damaged more than 35,000 schools, leaving 1.5 million students with extreme challenges in continuing their education. What was remarkable was that despite the shock and impact on their own homes, families and communities reacted so quickly to ensure that children were back in school swiftly so as not to disrupt their learning.

Within days, government engineers carried out visits to schools labelling over 15,000 schools that were no longer safe to use. I remember that while the earthquake happened on a Saturday, on Monday data on the extent of the damage started coming in from districts, showing how well prepared everyone was.

Community members started building temporary learning centers as makeshift classrooms. Development partners, including NGOs, supported building many of these, provided materials and psychosocial support.

Once schools re-opened, a more detailed assessment of all affected schools was carried out, and the recovery framework identified 45,000 classrooms in need of repair or reconstruction. 

With the support of development partners, the government committed to building back better by constructing and retrofitting the schools to earthquake resistant standards developed after the earthquake and enforced since.

Construction of the remaining schools planned for the 2019/20 fiscal year has begun. 

Embedding recovery in the sector plan

Nepal’s School Sector Development Plan (SSDP), which was under development when the earthquake occurred, was revised to reflect disaster and school reconstruction objectives and strategies as part of the overall reconstruction effort.

The plan includes not only disaster mitigation objectives but also programs to support community resilience, an important component as schools are at the center of many communities.

Structural assessments of non-affected districts and schools were carried out and retrofitting will ensure that damage is minimized the next time a disaster hits. Nepal’s curriculum and textbooks already included disaster risks, including earthquakes, but this will be strengthened.

In line with the GPE principles of inclusive and effective education policy dialogue around the government, Nepal’s joint sector review processes were strengthened over the years.

Reconstruction efforts continue to be part of the sector discussions, providing regular updates on the earthquake recovery and reconstruction efforts to development partners.

New GPE grants to support a stronger education system

GPE continues to support Nepal and awarded the country US$24.2 million in March 2019, which go into a pooled fund with the Government and 8 other development partners. The GPE grant directly supports the implementation of the government program, the SSDP, which aims to improve the quality, access and efficiency of early childhood, basic and secondary education, and also includes disaster risk reduction. 

The grant is composed of a regular implementation grant of US$9.2 million and a US$15 million GPE Multiplier grant, leveraged with additional co-financing of US$164 million from the Asian Development Bank and US$3.5 million from USAID. The ADB grant supports disaster risk reduction and school safety.

Through the efforts of the government and its partners, Nepal is not only in the final phase of recovering from the damages and impact from the 2015 disaster but has also further strengthened its education sector resilience. The country is now prepared to face natural disasters and ensure education doesn’t get disrupted.

Unfortunately, this is not a luxury as the country is located in one of the most active seismic zones in the world and earthquakes are not an ‘if’ but rather a ‘when’.

Students affected by the earthquake, like Dipesh and Matisha, have hope that they’ll be able to continue their education in a safe classroom and look forward to a better future.