KATHMANDU, Jan 5: Tribhuvan University (TU) has set age bar for its students to contest elections to the Free Students Unions (FSU).
The TU Senate meeting on Wednesday took the decision that students should not be more than 28 years old to contest the FSU elections.
Age bar for FSU candidacy divides students
This is the first time the TU has set age bar for the candidates in the over four decades long history of the FSUs.
The meeting chaired by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, who is also the chancellor of the university, decided to enforce the age bar from the upcoming FSU elections scheduled for March 27.
"The meeting has decided to introduce age bar for the candidates for the first time," said Bhola Dhakal, spokesperson at the university. "It will be effective from the upcoming FSU election scheduled for March 27."
In July last year, the university had finalized the date for holding new FSU elections. The last FSU elections were held eight years ago.
"We had been mulling introducing age bar for the candidates since a long time and had been getting mixed reactions. And today we made the decision," Dhakal added.
The university has a provision of holding student union elections every two years. However, disputes among student unions over the age limit and election modality had caused delay in holding the elections. The term of the previous FSUs had expired in March 2011.
