According to Supreme Court spokesperson Arjun Koirala, schools will not be allowed to charge fees for various purposes, including admissions, examinations, and extracurricular activities.
What you should know
Community school students will no longer be allowed to charge any fees. The Supreme Court has issued an order not to charge fees from community school students.
The Supreme Court on Sunday ruled in a writ petition filed by the All Nepal National Independent Students Union (ANNISU) District Working Committee Kavre, including outgoing president Milan Gautam, alleging that free education is not being implemented in practice. According to Supreme Court spokesperson Arjun Koirala, schools will not be allowed to charge fees for admission, examinations, and extracurricular activities. The writ petition was filed on February 17, 2001, naming all municipalities in Kavre, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers as defendants. The matter was filed in the Supreme Court after hearing complaints from ANNISU District Vice President Ayush Badal, Secretary Prabin Poudel, and others that students were not able to access their fundamental rights while conducting legal aid and student orientation programs in Kavre.
Stating that free and compulsory education is guaranteed by the constitution itself, a bench of Supreme Court Justices Nahakul Subedi and Mahesh Sharma Poudel has issued a mandate not to charge fees from students and parents under any heading.
‘The constitution itself guarantees free and compulsory education. In such a situation, fees cannot be charged from parents and students under any pretext,’ Koirala said ‘Since the constitution itself guarantees it, the responsibility to guarantee the right lies with the state.’
He said that no more fees can be charged from students and parents under any heading just because it is difficult to operate a school.
‘If a school is in difficulty, the responsibility to operate it is the state, and the responsibility to allocate the budget is also the state,’ he said.
In the education-related section of Article 31 of the constitution, it is mentioned that every citizen has the right to access basic education.
