Loding School
Project details
Loding School was built by the Himalayan Trust in 1971 in the Solu village of Loding. It grew steadily over the following decades, and a 2019 management plan for nearby Junbesi School records that Loding's school, by then upgraded to secondary level, was drawing students away from Junbesi's own roll.
The school, now known as Pike Secondary School, was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquakes and rebuilt under the Trust's REDSS programme, with the new building handed over in February 2017. The Trust still funds scholarships and stationery there; one recipient, Sandesh Rana Magar, went on to train as a Health Assistant and now works at a clinic in Kathmandu.
Loding School was one of the smaller village schools the Himalayan Trust built in Solu, going up in 1971 in the village of Loding. Over the following decades the school grew steadily, taking in students from further afield as its own facilities and reputation grew. A 2019 management plan for nearby Junbesi School records that Loding's school, along with those in Nunthala and Bakanje, had by then been upgraded to secondary level and was drawing students away from Junbesi, a direct sign of how far Loding's own school had come from its 1971 start.
The school is known today as Pike Secondary School, and by 2015 it had grown to around 157 students. The 2015 earthquakes damaged its buildings badly enough that it became one of seven schools chosen for the first year of the Trust's REDSS rebuild programme in 2016, alongside Salleri, Tamakhani, Junbesi, Beni, Goli and Lumukarma. Construction started in April 2016 and the rebuilt school, three new classroom blocks with nine rooms in total, built to an earthquake-resistant standard, was handed over to the school in February 2017. The total cost came to a little under NPR 9.75 million, of which NPR 8.56 million, 88 percent, came from REDSS's international donor group and the rest from a community contribution.
The Trust still funds scholarships and stationery at Pike Secondary School. One recipient, Sandesh Rana Magar, completed his SEE there before being awarded the Sir Edmund Hillary Memorial Scholarship in 2022. He went on to study a Diploma in General Medicine, qualified as a Health Assistant after three years, and now works at a clinic in Tokha, on the edge of Kathmandu, a career that traces in a straight line back to a village school built more than fifty years earlier.