Political meddling at government controlled education and health establishments is not a new phenomenon. Since the restoration of democracy in 1990, the country’s universities and government-run health institutions have become grounds for politics by proxy, as each of the major parties looks to pack them with their near and dear ones. Under the Baburam Bhattarai government, the trend, sadly, seems to have continued, and might have even worsened. Only a few months ago, the Institute of Medicine (IoM), Maharajgunj, had to be bailed out of undue political interference by Dr Govinda KC, who put his own life on the line to clean up the muck in his institution. Now, services at Patan Hospital, often hailed as the best government-run healthcare provider in the country, have been halted since a couple of months following the controversial appointment of Sangita Bhandari as the Vice-Chancellor of the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) at the hospital.
Now that the case against Bhandari’s appointment is with the Supreme Court, we hope the court will be able to establish the right precedent: by issuing a verdict that appointments at what should be strictly merit-based posts should not be made along political lines. It might be argued that in a thoroughly politicized society, where staff at virtually every government-run office is sharply divided along political lines, appointment of completely ‘neutral’ but qualified candidate would be an impossible task. But even while that might be the case, we still believe right appointments can be made if the direct stakeholders in the respective institutions are allowed to choose the candidate to lead them. Best of all would be to establish a tradition of filling up these posts on the recommendation of a team of experts at the respective institutions. The current trend of imposing candidates from the top is counterproductive for the growth and development of these vital institutions. It is also highly contentious, often crippling the normal functioning of these institutions.
Perhaps no other entities in Nepal are as politicized as the universities, especially the government-run Tribhuvan University, by far the largest institution of higher education in the country. But other universities are also witnessing more and more political meddling. The latest victim has been Purwanchal University, whose professors and other staff members have strongly protested the appointment of a new registrar from outside the university. The university had on Thursday appointed Niroj Pandey as its new registrar, going against the previous agreement to make the appointment from among senior PU professors. Pandey, apparently, is a close relative of influential UCPN (Maoist) leader Haribol Gajurel. The forced appointment has thrown the university’s normal functioning off gear, and resulted in long delays in year-ending exams.
These kinds of ad hoc appointments have increased the longer the state of transition has dragged on. In this state of political vacuum, the government does not seem to feel accountable towards anyone, unsurprising as almost all organs to establish check and balance are now defunct, including the parliament. This lack of accountability could have dangerous consequences on the health of our most precious state resources, our education and healthcare establishments. Unless the political parties are committed to keeping these hallowed institutions away from the dark shadows of partisan politics, development of a healthy, qualified manpower at home will continue to remain a pipedream.
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