Kathmandu, February 20, 2007

The Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) today unveiled policies and regulations on education sector. The ministry stated that these documents would improve the quality of education in the country.

The ministry launched regulations including School Textbook Printing and Distribution Regulation 2063, Policy on Private Technical Colleges 2063, Regulation on Monitoring Activities Undertaken by Agencies under Education Ministry 2063 and Regulation on School Level Extra-curricular Activities 2063.

The policies endorsed by the ministry are the Regulation on Conducting Distance Education Programmes, National Curriculum Framework for School Education, Gender Mainstreaming Policy, Amendment on the Regulation of Community School Support Programme 2060 and Regulation on Providing Scholarships to 10 per cent Students in Private Schools.

Balananda Poudel, acting education secretary of Education Ministry, talking to the media at the ministry said implementation of the regulation on textbooks would help students get textbooks on time and in fair price.

The regulation has provided that private printing houses will also be given the opportunity to print the government prescribed textbooks. Janardan Nepal, director of Department of Education (DoE), said the DoE has already allocated money to the schools to acquire textbooks for the forthcoming academic year.

Hence, unlike previous years students in government schools across the nation will get textbooks on time in the coming year, he said.

Panic buying causes petroleum shortage

Panic buying by the consumers and uneven supply pattern by Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC) are aggravating the petroleum supply crisis in the valley.

Even though NOC, the sole supplier of petroleum products, claims that the petroleum supply has been raised to almost double, for the past couple of days, huge crowds was seen at the major petrol pumps in the valley.

The NOC officials say that short-supply has been felt for, especially petrol, within the core areas of the Kathmandu valley, due to panic in the consumers. “People have started stocking the petroleum products fearing that the supply could be disrupted any time which has caused an artificial shortage,” clarifies Ichha Bikram Thapa, spokesperson at the NOC. According

to him, NOC has supplied more than one-and-a-half times the normal demand in the Kathmandu valley on Sunday and on Tuesday.

NOC through its Thankot depot released 290,000 litres of petrol on Sunday and 276,000 litres on Tuesday, whereas the valley’s normal demand stands only at 1,80,000 litres a day. “It clearly shows that consumers have started hoarding petroleum products,”Thapa adds.