Tenth grader Janaknandini Chaudhary, from Pakdi village in Kapilvastu, has quite the arduous daily commute -- she has to cross an international border to get to school every morning.
Chaudhary attends the Shahide Azam Bhagat Singh Higher Secondary School across the border in India because there are no high schools in her village. Though the journey is far from home, Janaknandini feels just as comfortable in the neighbouring country.
“It is difficult for me to understand or speak in Nepali. Since Hindi and Awadhi are my mother tongues, it is easier to study there,” she says. Instead of singing the Nepali national anthem every morning, she croons “Jana gana mana...” of the Indian national anthem.
Like Janaknandini, more than 20 children of Pakdi cross the border to India to attend school every day. Since the village only provides schooling up to lower secondary, older students in Pakdi must travel to Rangapur, a town 5km away, to attend secondary school. But due to travel constraints, some parents opt for an even longer route. “As the road condition to Rangapur is bad, people prefer to send their children to Indian schools,” says Pakdi resident Saroj Chaudhary.
