KATHMANDU, Sept 3: Since the House of Representatives (HoR)’s Education, Health, and Information Technology Committee endorsed the School Education Bill on August 21 through a majority decision, stakeholders have been staging a series of protests against some of its provisions.
While teachers and private school operators have already taken to the streets on September 1, 17 student organizations also jointly launched protests opposing the Bill. This has forced the School Education Bill to face counter-movements from multiple sides.
The Bill, registered in the HoR on August 22, is scheduled for deliberation on September 10. With public school teachers and private school operators already lobbying hard, the Bill has been caught in a deadlock. Now, student organizations—direct stakeholders—have joined the protests, demanding that the Bill be made more student-friendly.
On Tuesday, joint student organizations submitted a memorandum to Acting Prime Minister Prakash Man Singh, demanding a student-friendly law. They argued that recruitment of teachers should be 100 percent through open competition, that basic education has already been mandated as compulsory and free and that secondary education is free as per the 2018 directive. Therefore, they said, no new private schools should be allowed to open.
“School Education Bill must be student and school-friendly. This is also the government’s desire,” Acting Prime Minister Singh said while receiving the memorandum, assuring that he would raise students’ genuine demands with the concerned authorities.
Govt school teachers stage protest in capital against School Ed...
The joint student organizations also demanded that the 60 percent internal and 40 percent open provision for teacher recruitment be scrapped and replaced with 100 percent open competition. They announced a weeklong protest program.
Meanwhile, the Nepal Teachers’ Federation (NTF), the umbrella body of public school teachers, has been staging sit-ins and picketing political party offices since August 27. They demand that teacher recruitment be set at 75 percent internal and 25 percent open and that teacher positions remain under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
On Tuesday, they staged a two-hour sit-in at the Rastriya Swatantra Party headquarters. Earlier, they had submitted memoranda to six major political parties—CPN-UML, CPN (Maoist Center), CPN (Unified Socialist), Nepal Samajbadi Party, and Nepali Congress (NC)—as well as to all 753 local levels and 77 district education coordination units.
On the other hand, private school operators have taken to the streets, demanding the removal of provisions requiring them to operate schools on a non-profit basis and provide them full scholarships. For the past two years, the Bill has remained stalled due to pressure and bargaining by both teachers and private school operators. Recently, both sides have intensified efforts to amend the Bill in their favor, plunging it into a deeper crisis.
Due to repeated amendments, the Bill has increasingly shifted focus, becoming more about teachers and private schools rather than addressing issues like improving student learning outcomes, curricula, classroom facilities such as blackboards and benches, ensuring regular teaching, or tracking learning achievements.
On Tuesday, the joint student organizations, led by All Nepal National Independent Students’ Union-Revolutionary (ANNFSU-R) General Secretary Roshan Thapamagar, presented a nine-point demand to the Acting Prime Minister. Shortly afterward, they also submitted memoranda to Maoist Center Chief Whip Hit Raj Pandey, Rastriya Swatantra Party Chief Whip Santosh Pariyar, and Nepali Congress Chief Whip Shyam Raj Ghimire.
According to NTF General Secretary Tula Bahadur Thapa, the federation’s agreed position is that 75 percent of temporary teachers be recruited through internal competition and 25 percent through open competition. However, the endorsed bill sets it at 60 percent internal and 40 percent open. The federation has also demanded golden handshakes for those failing exams, as per 2018 precedents. “The bill fails to address the situation of 6,000 temporary contract teachers,” Thapa said, adding that internal competition should include them. He also objected to provisions barring principals from joining trade unions.
NTF Chair Laxmi Kishwor Subedi said that agreements signed with the government in 2018, 2021, 2023, and April 2025 have not been reflected in the bill. “The provision for periodic promotions has been removed,” he said, demanding reinstatement of the 75 percent internal and 25 percent open recruitment ratio.
He added that issues like renewal of expired teaching licenses, job security for school staff, recognition of early childhood teachers, security for institutional school teachers and support for conflict-affected teachers have been excluded. The federation also opposes transferring the determination of teacher positions to local governments.
Meanwhile, private school operators have protested the provision requiring schools to operate as non-profits and provide full scholarships, including hostel facilities. Former Private and Boarding Schools’ Organization Nepal (PABSON) Chair D.K. Dhungana said they had no choice but to stage demonstrations by blocking roads with empty school buses. He added that on September 11, private school operators nationwide would converge in Kathmandu for a shutdown program.
According to ANNFSU-R’s General Secretary Thapa, their demands include eliminating distortions caused by the privatization and commercialization of education and developing it fully as a service-oriented sector. They argue that, as per Nepal’s Constitution, all levels of education must gradually be made free, and therefore, the Bill must permanently prohibit new private schools from opening. They also opposed the proposed upper age limit and qualification criteria for teacher recruitment, saying it would create a shortage of capable teachers in public schools, further deepening the crisis. They demanded reinstatement of the previous provision of an 18–40 years age limit and earlier qualification requirements.
Additionally, the students demanded that children of teachers, employees, and elected representatives who receive state salaries and benefits be legally required to study in community schools.
The original draft of the Bill, tabled in 2023 by then-Education Minister Ashok Rai, had included more student-friendly provisions: 50 percent internal and 50 percent open competition for temporary teacher recruitment; requiring private schools to be converted into community education trusts within 10 years; establishing a single education system to ensure free schooling nationwide; keeping the Secondary Education Examination (SEE) under provincial governments and Grade 12 exams under the National Examination Board; and mandating private schools to provide scholarships—10 percent for 500 students admitted, 12 percent for 800 students admitted, and 15 percent for more than 800 students admitted. However, once the Bill reached the Education Committee, lobbying by teachers and private school operators turned it into a battleground, leaving the bill trapped between competing interests.
