More than 600 community schools in the Kathmandu Valley remained closed Tuesday due to the educational strike called by temporary teachers. The strike affected around 125,000 students.

Demanding that the government should begin the process for giving permanent status to the temporary teachers, publish results of the Teachers’ Service Commission, and revise the decision of five-year term extension for provisional teachers, the Temporary Teachers’ Central Struggle Committee had enforced the closure of the valley-based public schools, said the Committee’s Chairperson Ram Chandra Adhikari. 

Though Adhikari claimed that more than 28,000 community schools across the country were shut and 5.9 million students were affected, the District Education Officers (DEO) outside the valley reported that educational activities were normal in all schools Tuesday. 

“No classes were disrupted in any of the schools in the district,” Dolakha DEO told Republica on the phone.

At a time when a number of community schools are witnessing zero enrolment due to decline in the quality of education offered by such schools, such protests targeting the innocent students threatens the very future of community schools, said the Lalitpur DEO Shiva Sapkota. 

The chairman of the Guardians’ Association Suprabhat Bhandari also criticized the teachers’ protest for victimizing the students. Apart from enforcing the educational strike, the teachers also staged sit-it protest in front of the Department of Education at Sanothimi in Bhaktapur on Tuesday.

Despite the protest, government officials have yet to take initiatives to hold dialogue with the teachers. MoE spokesperson Mahashram Sharma said it is not possible to start the process to make the temporary teachers permanent without first amending the Education Act 1971. A bill to amend the act remained stuck at the president’s office for a year following the dissolution of parliament in 2012 and the new parliament has yet to discuss the bill.

Of the total 26,000 provisional and contract teachers, as many as 700 teachers have already retired due to the age limit of 58 years, according to the protesting teachers. 

Among the two parallel committees that advocate for the rights of the community school teachers, the committee of the provisional teachers appointed under the Ministry of Education (MoE) after 2006 led Tuesday’s closure. However, the Temporary Teacher’s Struggle Committee of 17,000 teachers appointed before 2006 has also expressed its solidarity with the protest, the committee’s chairman Nirendra Kunwar said.

After a series of protests in front of MoE and the offices of major political parties, the ministry for the first time in 2011 indicated that it would begin the process to address the 15 year-old issue. As part of the effort, the ministry initiated the process for amending the Education Act 1971.

In 2012 after the teachers padlocked community schools for an ‘indefinite’ period, the teachers and government reached a four-point agreement to end the strike. The Supreme Court in 2010 had also directed the government to formulate necessary laws to ensure facilities to the temporary teachers on par with the permanent ones.

Published on: 7 May 2014 | Republica