KATHMANDU: Nepal Teachers Union (NTU) has demanded 25 per cent budget allocation to the education sector in the annual estimation of income and expenditure for the upcoming fiscal year 2018/19.

Speaking at a press conference organised today, the newly-elected president of NTU Rajendra Raj Poudel said that the Union has come up with this demand as the current budget allocated to the education sector was inadequate.

Likewise, the general convention held last week had put forth 23 demands related to issues in education sector, and 19 demands related to professional issues.

The demands included establishing a hospital for teachers for providing affordable treatment to them, abrogating the eighth amendment to the Education Act as it has tried to restrict the trade union rights, and adjusting the national postings of teachers by systematising the unequal allocation of the teachers' posts.

Meanwhile, the Union called for providing dress allowances to teachers working in the remote areas at par with the civil servants, constituting a constitutional teachers service commission and a high-level education commission, and fully implementing the declaration 'schools as zone of peace' among others.

The demand also included the political appointments to be made in the education sector be done from among the teachers, and that the state should take the responsibility of compulsory and free education up to the secondary level.