The Madhesi Teachers´ Union has demanded that the Ministry of Education (MoE) include its members in policy-making and while amending regulations related to education. Submitting a memorandum to Minister for Education Shankar Poudel on Monday, the chairman of the union Bishwa Nath Patel said that the MoE has been recognizing only the Nepal Teachers´ Union (NTU) and the Nepal Educational Republican Forum, which (NERF) does not include the voices of all teachers.

Similarly, the union has also added demanded that the teachers be given an opportunity to check answer sheets of higher secondary education, creating a separate quota for the teachers under the union. Likewise, the Madhes-based teachers´ union has also demanded the government to provide uniforms to all the teachers appointed by the government. Only permanent teachers are given the allowance to buy uniforms at present.

The teachers have also asked the government to implement the earlier agreement with the teachers on making permanent temporary teachers and increasing the salary of the teachers deployed at Early Childhood Development Centers across the country.

The government, the NTU and the NERF had last year agreed on 47-point demands, which included giving permanent status to temporary teachers and non-teaching staffs of the government schools, forming a Teachers´ Council and recognition of the Teacher Service Commission as a constitutional body.

Following the agreement, the MoE also amended the Education Act 1971, which is currently pending at the president´s office. The president had refused to take the ordinance forwarded by the former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai.

Published on: 5 August 2013 | Republica