Minister of Education and Sports Radha Krishna Mainali’s assurance that all the students with admission cards — irrespective of their political affiliations — will be allowed to appear for the March 27 SLC examinations is indeed a positive gesture provided it is carried out in all sincerity. The affiliation of the students to the CPN (Maoist) party — either out of personal preference or by sheer force — should in no way allow the security personnel to arrest, terrorise or harm the examinees in any way like in the past year when some Maoist students were picked up right from the examination halls. The National Coalition for Children as Zones of Peace secretariat’s appeal to the NHRC, the OHCHR-Nepal and the civil society to prohibit armed personnel’s presence at the examination centres will only help in ensuring the examinees’ better attendance with a secure frame of mind. Like all ordinary students, the Maoist affiliated students too, have the right to pursue education, the only difference being their ideological bend deemed unproductive at the present time. This is where education can play a critical role in making them see the wisdom of pursuing their academic goals without distractions.

When the government can provide the misguided youths a chance, then the Maoists too would be expected to reciprocate in the same spirit by withdrawing the bandh calls so that vital examinations like the SLC, whose preparations are almost complete, is not disrupted at the eleventh hour. It is everyone’s duty to ensure that the students’ 13 years of hard labour does not go waste just because of the adamant attitude of certain political forces. Both the warring parties — the security forces as well as the Maoists — should desist from using students as a political weapon as it is bound to boomerang, creating more disarray and chaos. As students are the country’s future, the least all the stakeholders can do is to declare schools as zones of peace and provide them a healthy environment so that their multi-dimensional personalities can flourish for the nation’s exclusive benefit.