The School Education Bill was passed by the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives on Thursday. After about 22 months of discussion, the bill was unanimously passed.

Committee chairman Amber Bahadur Thapa said that the bill will be submitted to the assembly after the committee's secretariat writes the report. The committee said that the bill was passed with amendments in some points of the report prepared by the sub-committee. A sub-committee was formed under the chairmanship of MP Chavi Lal Vishwakarma to finalize the bill quickly. The sub-committee decided the issues except private schools and Early Child Development Classes (ECD) and submitted a report to the committee. Along with those two issues, the committee reached a consensus by overturning some of the issues decided by the sub-committee.

Thursday's meeting reached agreement with standards on teacher promotion, performance evaluation, the existence of the Nepal Teachers' Federation and the 10 to 15 percent scholarship given by private schools. Although the ruling party promised to submit the bill to the House of Representatives before June 15, it was stopped because the demands of the teachers' federation had to be addressed. The committee has agreed to promote community school teachers in three ways. Earlier, there was no agreement due to the demands of teachers' federation regarding teacher promotion and performance evaluation. 

President Thapa said that it was agreed that teachers would be promoted based on internal promotion, performance evaluation and performance evaluation along with seniority. While calculating the teacher's performance evaluation, the performance evaluation average of the last five years should have obtained 80 points. When the sub-committee proposed 90 points, the Federation of Teachers expressed dissatisfaction. Until now, there was a system of promotion of teachers only through performance evaluation and internal competition.

The principal of the school will not be able to be a member of the Nepal Teachers Federation. It has been agreed in the committee that if a teacher who is a member of the federation is appointed as a professor, the membership will automatically become inactive. Participation in any activity of the Federation has also been banned until further notice. It has also been agreed that the two officials of the Federation will get a maximum of 2 months work facility in 1 year. The teachers who are assigned to work will have to appear at the place designated by the ministry. The ministry will have to make alternative arrangements to replace the vacant teachers when the work is done.

It has been agreed that private schools should give full scholarship to at least 10 to 15 percent based on the number of students. It has been agreed that 50 percent of poor and needy students and 50 percent of meritorious students should be selected from the committee. It is explained in the bill that the full scholarship includes tuition fees, clothing, transport, examinations and all the fees charged to the school. Private school administrators have been objecting to this. It has been agreed that the scholarship quota for private schools should be approved by the local level and the Ministry of Education will make standards to select students in a transparent manner. 

The sub-committee had already agreed on the matter of private schools and ECD. In the meeting held on June 14, it was agreed to make private schools service-oriented, public-welfare and non-profit gradually. Some parliamentarians filed an amendment stating that the private schools run by the company should be transferred to a non-profit organization after setting a period of 5 to 20 years. It could not be agreed upon.

It has been unanimously passed to strictly regulate private schools in matters such as fees, scholarships, services provided to teachers and staff, and operational standards. The provision of setting up and operating private schools in company and non-profit (guthi) model has been kept open. After the promulgation of the new constitution, the Eighth Amendment of the Education Act in 2073 prohibited the establishment of private schools in the company model. It was believed that the ban would increase the monopoly. Arrangements have also been made by the state to encourage the purchase of land, purchase of vehicles, educational materials and laboratory materials that have gone to private schools in the public sector.

It has also been agreed to conduct ECD as a two-year program before admission to class 1 in public and private schools. Currently ECD has been running for 1 year in community and 4 years in private schools. It has also been decided to keep ECD within the structure of community schools, to be an ECD teacher, they must have passed at least class 12 or 16 exams, to undergo compulsory service entry training, and to ensure that their wages are not less than the minimum prescribed by the Labor Act. The

committee has agreed that the Education Development and Coordinating Unit office in the district will remain as is, and the province will conduct the SEE of class 10, contrary to the agreement of the sub-committee. In each district, there will be an office for the education related work of the state government. The parliamentarians were of the view that the local level had arbitrarily transferred and punished the teachers and that the office was necessary to stop it. The work and duties of the office have been set to improve the educational quality of schools, map schools, collect educational data, keep records of public school assets, and coordinate with the central, provincial and local levels. It is arranged that the office should coordinate with the Ministry of Education of the Provincial Government.