A joint meeting of eight student unions, conducted by Nepal Student Union (NSU), decided to erase all foreign-sounding names from the hoarding boards of colleges from Saturday. "It´s a symbolic movement,” said NSU president Ranjit Karna. [break]
“We don´t believe that we can force all colleges to adopt new names. But our movement may ultimately force the government to take a strong action against such colleges.”
By foreign-sounding names, student unions do not simply refer to English names but also colleges named after foreign cities and institutions. In recent years, colleges with foreign-sounding names like Whitehouse, Pentagon and NASA have become popular among students. However, these colleges with foreign-sounding names have also created a lot of confusion among students.
The sixth amendment to the Education Act in 2051 BS says educational institutions should adopt names that reflect Nepal´s culture, history, geography, heritage or that honor national or social figures.
The crusade against foreign-sounding names was launched following two recent interaction programs -- first organized by All Nepal National Free Students Union (ANNFSU) and then by the NSU -- where the participants had decried the practice of naming collages after names of foreign cities and institutions.
However, All Nepal National Independent Student Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R), affiliated to the UCPN (Maoist), has abstained from eight student unions´ movement. The CPN (Maoist) led by Mohan Baidya-affiliated ANNISU-R has joined hands with the NSU and ANNFSU in the movement.
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