Teachers strikes shuts schools, students hit

Teachers shut down schools nationwide as students prepare for crucial SLC exams
Agitating temporary teachers associated with two major teachers unions have imposed an indefinite strike in educational institutions across the country from Sunday.
The strike was announced by Nepal Educational Republican Forum of the UCPN (Maoist) and Nepal Teachers' Union, saying that the government failed to meet their demands despite a week-long talks at the Ministry of Education recently.
Members of the two unions on Saturday said they were forced to re-launch the protest after the Ministry of Education failed to fulfill its commitment to look into the demands to grant permanent status to all temporary teachers working in government schools by completing certain procedures, granting of facilities to all private school teacher at par with their colleagues in government schools and amend the Education Act.
Gunaraj Lohani, chairman of the Forum, said they were forced to protest as Minister Sharma who is also the coordinator of the government’s talks team left for Sindhuli by abandoning the dialogue.
Meanwhile, the closure of schools today has directly affected more than eight million students in around 33,000 schools nationwide.
Guardian associations as well as various education experts have accusedthe agitating teachers of trying to play with the future of students and adversely affect the psychology of students by organizing series of strike at a time when students are preparing important district level examinations including the SLC exams which is set to begin from March 20.
Last month, the teachers had organised nationwide protest program as part of their nationwide protest program. The teachers organized sit-in protests in front of all the District Education Offices (DEOs) across the country, organised protest rallies in front of the Ministry of Education and also called students to take classes on Saturday, a weekly holiday.
It must be noted here that almost 4,000 private and community-run higher secondary schools that remained closed since the past four days has resumed operations from Friday last week after the government agreed to address the demands raised by Higher Secondary Teachers’ Association Nepal