Teachers withdraw protest as Cabinet agrees to address key demands, ET Education
Kathmandu, The Nepal Teachers’ Federation has called off their protest after they reached a consensus with the government of the country on a nine-point deal.
Following marathon meetings over three days with the teachers’ federation, Nepal’s education minister-led government panel on Wednesday decided to implement nine demands presented by the federation, local media reported.
Along with that, the ruling Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) parliamentary parties, as well as the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives, have committed to endorsing the School Education Bill by June 29, the leading Nepali newspaper, The Kathmandu Post, reported.
“We have decided to suspend the educational strike from today (Wednesday) following the Cabinet’s decision to implement our demands and commitment from the major parties as well as the chair of the education committee to get the bill endorsed by June 29,” said federation chair Laxmi Kishor Subedi at a press meet.
“We urge all the teachers to start student enrollment campaigns and resume pending examinations immediately,” said Subedi.
Reading out the Cabinet’s decisions at a press meet Nepal’s Education Minister Raghuji Pant said that as per the demand of the federation, it has decided that all temporary teaching and school staff — including relief quota teachers, temporary, contract-based, former lower secondary, learning grant-based, technical stream and special education teachers, as well as early childhood development (ECD) facilitators — would be paid for their accumulated leaves as a lump sum upon retirement.
However, the Cabinet has not specified their salaries.
Additionally, it included the provision of medical treatment for teachers and school staff at the Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu at subsidised rates.
The Cabinet further decided on the payment of grades to primary-level third-grade teachers, primary-level second-grade and lower secondary third-grade teachers, as well as secondary first-grade teachers, on par with civil servants.
Earlier this week, as many as 62 teachers and a journalist were injured when a confrontation broke out with police as protesting teachers gathered on the Bijulibazar-New Baneshwar road section and attempted to breach a restricted area, prompting police to intervene.
The Oli administration also agreed to provide free treatment to the teachers injured during the clash with police following the demonstration.
“Implementation of the teachers’ demands will put an additional Rs 8 billion burden on state coffers,” Education Minister Pant said at the press meet.
Meanwhile, referring to the promulgation of the School Education Act as their primary demand, the teachers’ federation threatened to intensify protests if Parliament doesn’t endorse the legislation within the committed deadline.
“We believe the commitment will be honoured by the deadline. If it isn’t, the federation will start sterner protests,” said Subedi.
The teacher’s demonstrations and sit-ins in the Maitighar-Naya Baneshwor area of Kathmandu since April 2 have severely disrupted the national enrollment drive, delayed key academic tasks, such as evaluating answer sheets from the recently held Secondary Education Examination (SEE), and postponement of grade 12 examination till May 4.
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