Arya News - The enactment of the School Education Act is crucial for implementing Nepal’s federal constitution, which aims to decentralise education. However, nearly a decade after the constitution came into force, the country is yet to have the law in place.
KATHMANDU – One-and-a-half years after they ended their protest in Kathmandu following an agreement with the government, thousands of teachers from across the country demonstrated in the Capital on Saturday.
The Nepal Teachers’ Federation had called off its Kathmandu-centric agitation after a six-point agreement with the government.
Alleging government reluctance to endorse the School Education Bill from the ongoing session of the Parliament, the Federation, an umbrella body of various teachers’ unions, resumed street protests to press the government to pass the bill.
The major component of the six-point agreement was revising the School Education Bill. However, there was no follow-up to the agreement.
Despite the commitment, government officials ignored their demands for the past one-and-a-half years, teachers participating in the protest said.
Bidur Lamichhane from Kavre, a teacher at Swapneshwari Secondary School, said they were forced to come to Kathmandu for the protest due to the government’s failure to implement the agreement.
“In view of the upcoming Secondary Education Examinations (SEE), we have gathered in Kathmandu from across the country only for a one-day protest,” Lamichhane said. “We will announce further programmes if the government does not implement the agreement.”
However, Shiva Kumar Sapkota, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, said there was no ill motive even as the implementation of the agreement was delayed. It was also not due to bureaucratic inefficiency, he argued.
Sapkota claims that the government is fully committed to implementing the agreement reached with the teachers’ union. “But the government is looking for a reasonable solution,” Sapkota further said. “Exploring a long-term solution in line with the existing laws is taking time.”
The law, once endorsed, should work at least for a few years, Sapkota said about the bill.
Currently, around 200,000 people—including teachers appointed under various categories and administrative staff—are working in government schools across the country. These include teachers working under relief quotas, temporary quotas, and administrative staff.
Relief quota teachers are individuals employed on a contract basis by local units to address the shortage of teachers at community schools. There are around 40,000 such teachers.
The relief quota teachers have been demanding that either all 40,000 of them should be allowed to participate in internal competitions or they should be allowed to continue teaching until their retirement age of 60.
Apart from the endorsement of the School Education Bill, the Federation also demands permanent status for all non-permanent employees, according to Surendra Bahadur Shahi, the district president of the National Teachers Federation, Kalikot.
“We came all the way from Kalikot to press the government to sincerely implement the six-point deal reached with us earlier,” Shahi told the Post at Maitighar on Saturday.
Before converging in the Capital, teachers had staged protests at the local and provincial level while simultaneously lobbying the political and bureaucratic leadership.
On February 11, schools across the country hosted interactions where students, parents, and school management committees were briefed on teachers’ demands and the need for the movement.
The teachers’ demand for a swift passage of the law is not new.
When the government introduced the bill in Parliament in September 2023, thousands of teachers took to the streets in Kathmandu, forcing the government into dialogue. That movement ended with a six-point agreement in which the government assured teachers that their concerns would be addressed through amendments to the bill.
The enactment of the School Education Act is crucial for implementing Nepal’s federal constitution, which aims to decentralise education. However, nearly a decade after the constitution came into force, the country is yet to have the law in place.
Deviram Bhusal, an accountant at Tyouda Secondary School in Asan, Kathmandu, says that the bill’s passage will help implement the federal education system. Currently, some schools have more teachers than students, while others have far fewer teachers than required. The bill’s passage will address this problem in teacher management, Bhusal said.
What impact will the passing of the bill have on school education?
Bhusal says that although there are 35,000 school staff serving across the country, they are forced to work for minimum wages as they do not have permanent status.
For those who don’t have a permanent status, the federal government currently provides a salary of Rs13,500, and the local government adds Rs6,500 to that. Schools that have good incomes also provide additional salaries to school employees based on their qualification, but this is not mandatory due to the lack of permanent positions.
“The endorsement of the bill by Parliament will pave the way for the school employees’ permanent status,” Bhusal said.
Will the government be able to manage all the resources necessary to address the teachers’ demand is another aspect to consider, education ministry spokesperson Sapkota said. “However, the government in principle is positive about addressing the demands.”