The private schools have demanded to amend the provision made in the School Education Bill to gradually make private schools non-profit and to give full scholarships to students.
What you should know
Disagreeing with some provisions of the school education bill, four organizations of private school administrators have announced a protest. Private schools are gradually being made non-profit and the administrators have been protesting the provision of full scholarships to students.
Pabson, National Pabson, Hisan and Appen issued a joint statement and announced that they will start a protest from Thursday demanding the removal of the two provisions from the bill. They have put forward 5 point demands.
The Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives has agreed that private schools will gradually become non-profit and private schools will give 10 to 15 percent full scholarships. Full scholarship is defined as fees charged and provided by the school, including tuition, examinations, textbooks, learning materials, clothing, transportation and residential facilities (if available at the school).
The issue of how many students will be provided with residential facilities is yet to be decided. Education Minister Raghuji Pant has proposed that 2.50 percent of students should be given housing facilities by private schools running hostels, while MPs have been of the view that they should be given to 10 percent. The bill provides for 10% scholarship for up to 500 students, 12% for up to 800 students and 15% for more students.
In the same way, some parliamentarians made an amendment to transfer private schools to non-profit organizations by specifying a certain year. The committee has agreed to take the non-profit gradually over the years. After the committee's secretariat has finished writing the report on the bill, it has been made available to parliamentarians for study. They have put forward a demand that the word "full scholarship" should be removed, and the provision of clothing, stationery, educational material and lunch should be canceled from the full scholarship.
According to the Company Act, the provision that the registered and operating schools should be made non-profit should be removed, and the scholarship authority should be given to the school instead of the local level. There is a provision in the bill that the details of providing scholarships must be submitted to the local level and students must be selected through competition.
The argument of the private school administrators is that the private school itself can arrange the distribution of scholarships by having a representative at the local level. "We are demanding to bring a private sector friendly, practical, fair and inclusive education act," said the statement. In the program of the movement declared as
, it is mentioned that there will be a demonstration at Maitighar Mandla, Baneshwar, Chakrapath and encirclement of the Parliament building. Subhash Neupane, president of National Pabson, said that if the demand is not met, a decisive protest will be held from August 8. Along with him, Pabson President Krishna Prasad Adhikari, National Paisan Hisan Acting President Yuvraj Sharma and APEN President Badri Prasad Dahal have put 5 points in the statement.
