School closures push families to leave villages for children’s education

In the remote settlement of Thongthong, located within ward 1 of Bigu Rural Municipality, most of the houses are padlocked. This high-altitude village of 43 households has been transformed into a ghost town, with only nine families remaining. The reason is not a lack of resources or a desire for urban luxury, but a desperate quest for basic education. In this northern corner of Dolakha, a hill district of Bagmati province, parents are forced to abandon their ancestral lands simply to ensure their children can attend basic school. The crisis intensified four years ago when the Thongthong Basic School, which once provided education up to grade 3, was merged with another public school in Gogar due to dwindling student numbers. This was part of a wider trend across the country of merging or scrapping small schools due to poor enrollment and shortage of resources. The structures built with international aid following the 2015 earthquake stand as decaying ruins, reclaimed by weeds. With the local school closed, families have been faced with an impossible choice—keep their children at home or lock their doors and migrate elsewhere. Lal Bahadur Tamang, a local of Thongthong who chose to migrate for children’s education, explained the physical toll of the journey. "To reach the nearest school in Gogar, our children must navigate treacherous cliffside trails for at least four hours every day. It is an impossible commute for a six-year-old,” said Lal Bahadur. “I had to lock my house