By Sunil KC

After the political and economic fiascos the present government led by Prime Minister KP Oli is embroiled in another mess with tens of thousands school teachers hitting the street of Kathmandu for the last three weeks demanding a School Education Act.

As a protest to the government’s disinclination for a meaningful approach to the teacher’s demands, Minister for Education Vidya Bhattarai abruptly resigned from her post earlier this week after Oli rejected her 7-point proposal to resolve the ongoing school teachers’ agitation. Reports say Prime Minister Oli and Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel rejected the proposal citing financial constraints. It is said Minister Bhattarai was not also included in the discussion between Prime Minister Oli and the teachers’ representatives at the Prime Minister’s residence earlier this week.

The teachers' demands include an increase in the salary of early childhood development teachers, adjustment of grades in salary structures, bringing school teachers under the social security net, additional allowances to teachers assigned in remote areas and allowing teachers to be treated at the government-owned  Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu under a discounted rate to be incorporated in the Education Act. It is said the demands if fulfilled, will accrue an additional cost of Rs. 150 billion to Rs. 200 billion annually.

The teachers’ strike is in its fourth week now. They are demanding a School Education Act by incorporating the agreements reached with the different governments in the past. While the teachers are in no mood to back off until the Education Act is enacted, Prime Minister Oli’s statement earlier this week has only irked them further. PM Oli speaking at a programme, in a mockery-filled tone, belittled the teachers’ agitation. He casually said that the new Act is being discussed in the parliament and that they will do only as much as the financial resources allow.

He even questioned the rationale of the Secondary Education Examinations (SEE) examination. “Why do we need the SEE examinations, when 52 per cent of the students fail?” he asked. He indirectly blamed the teachers for the poor results. The SEE is a nationwide examination of Grade 12 students a precursor before the students go to college at home or abroad. In last year’s examination, a total of 464,785 students had taken the examination but 52.14 per cent of those failed. The majority of those who failed come from the government and community schools. This kind of poor result has been going on for decades.

This year’s SEE examination was scheduled to start from today (Baishak 11). However, because of the teachers’ agitation, Prime Minister Oli instructed the National Examination Board (NEB) to defer the schedule. The Board has scheduled the examination for Baishak 21 (May 4). The agitating teachers are saying that they will neither participate in conducting the examination nor take part in correcting the answer papers. Earlier, the Board (NEB) had decided to hold the examinations even by making alternative arrangements by using local municipalities and civil servants. However, the union of school staffers and the union of civil servants have opposed the government’s plan to use them in the examinations.

Conducting this examination involving more than half a million students is a daunting task that requires thousands of personnel in more than 1500 examination centres in 77 districts of the country. Sharma said that they would need almost 51,000 personnel, including security personnel, to conduct the examinations.

It does not matter how the present mass movement of school teachers ends, but it has laid bare the deeply entrenched malaise of school education. Rampant politicization of schools, division of school teachers and school staffers under party flags in the name of trade unions all have taken a toll on the school system. One teacher participating in the current strike openly admitted that the teachers of government and community schools have been more party workers and cadres than actual teachers. “This has to change now,” he added.

There is unanimous consent that one of the crucial factors of the government and community schools doing so badly is the politicization of teachers and school management. The question is who benefits by suppressing the quality of education in government and community schools? The obvious answer is the private schools. School education is now a multi-billion rupees business. There are telltale signs that successive governments have been working for the benefit of private schools and their investors. This was made even obvious when Prime Minister Oli, about a month ago at a programme called the private sector to invest in school education and that their investments were secured by law.

Already, there are hundreds of private schools who charge exorbitant amount in the name of tuition and other headings making them accessible only to the rich and affluent classes and beyond the reach of majority of the populace. It is an open secret that many investors in those for-profit private schools are politicians, their cronies and big businessmen.

Taking a cue from Oli’s statement, the current tussle of Oli sidelining and snubbing Minister Bhattarai, who resigned earlier this week, can be gauged by the fact that Bhattarai at the beginning of her tenure had proposed to introduce, in the Education Act, provisions of free and compulsory education till higher secondary level and to convert private schools into trust and into not-for-profit institutions within five years. If those provisions were introduced in the Education Act this would put the investments of many politicians and other businessmen at risk.

Successive government’s apathy to the plights of government and community schools and the rise of expensive private schools that boast curriculum and quality in par with other countries is creating a class system in education with a few educated elites and poorly educated and unskilled masses, whose only option would be to go abroad to earn a meager livelihood.