KATHMANDU, March 29: Officials at the Ministry of Education (MoE) are discussing the management and administrative structure of the education sector after the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers refused to register the 'final' draft of the Education Regulations for approval by the cabinet.
After approval from the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, the draft of the Regulations was forwarded to the cabinet on March 20. However, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) sent the draft back to the MoE, citing contradiction of the regulation with the structure of the 744 local bodies and the constitution of Nepal.
Draft of Education Regulation in final stage
“We are holding discussions in the ministry on the structure, position, and management of the education resources so as to carry out work, addressing the prevalent problems,” said Saraswati Pokhrel, joint-spokesperson for the MoE. “We are not discussing the new federal structure and the new regulation. First, the positions and roles of teachers and other staffers should be defined. Then, we will discuss the new law and regulation as per the federal system,” she added.
After approval from the law ministry, the MoE had forwarded the draft regulation to the cabinet a week ago, according to Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, secretary at the MoE. The final draft of the regulation does not include any educational bodies as per the recently-implemented 744 local units.
The eighth amendment to the Education Act also does not furnish all the provisions embedded in the new constitution. So, according to high officials at the MoE, there is the need for a new Education Act and a new regulation.
The draft regulation has different provisions including Grades 0-8 as basic/elementary education, Grades 9-12 as secondary education, private schools to pay government scale salary to teachers, free secondary education, and transfer of school teachers among others. But the draft regulation is silent on the local education authorities, which are inevitable in the federal system.
The final draft of the regulations has proposed adding about 30,000 teachers for schools including child development centers, which are considered as the pre-primary schools.
