KATHMANDU, Oct 7: The student union affiliated to the CPN (Maoist Center) has padlocked the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) on Friday accusing the CTEVT of making preparations to issue affiliation to colleges which do not meet the basic infrastructural requirements.
All Nepal National Independent Student Union-Revolutionary (ANNISUR) has alleged that the CTEVT is set to issue new affiliations after taking millions in bribes from the colleges.
5.5m euro EU grant to CTEVT
The student union took away 12 folders containing documents before padlocking the offices of the CTEVT Vice Chairperson Dr Kul Bahadur Basnet, Member Secretary Pushpa Raman Wagle and Spokesperson Jeeb Narayan Kafle on Friday.
The CTEVT was planning to issue affiliations to about two dozen schools for different programs.
More than 300 private schools have applied for affiliation to the CTEVT for over 600 programs between 2001 and 2011. Among them, about two dozen schools for 36 different programs were waiting for the CTEVT approval.
The CTEVT has shelved nearly 3,000 proposals that were called by the CTEVT in 2012. Among them, 1,693 applicants have already paid a fee of Rs 100,000 each to get affiliation to run the vocational training programs. Since 2012, the CTEVT has not called for proposals affiliation to run vocational courses in the country.
“CTEVT used to take bribe while issuing affiliation to the schools in the past,” said a high ranking official at the CTEVT. “It cannot be denied this time also. The officials of CTEVT are also involved in such scandals while pressure comes from the Ministry of Education,” he said, requesting anonymity. “Education Minister might have pressurized to forward the procedure to issue affiliation,” he added.
Bharat Regmi, board member of the CTEVT, said that they held a meeting on Friday at the Ministry of Education, regarding the issuance of affiliation. “Audio-visuals were presented in the meeting that started from yesterday,” he said.
“We will decide to issue affiliation to all the applicants from 2001 to 2011 on Sunday. In our country, anyone is blamed for irregularities in course of work but we will not stop from moving ahead with our plan,” Regmi said. “The federal states will decide on the remaining applicants since 2012 as per their needs in line with federalism,” he added.
