Kathmandu, December 13

Education Minister Dhaniram Paudel said the ministry was trying to bring out a new Education Regulation within 15 days.

Speaking at an interaction organised by Educational Journalist Network Nepal today, Minister Paudel said the ministry had collected recommendations from all stakeholders and revised the draft more than nine times.

“We have now decided to bring out a new Educational Regulation compatible with the amended Education Act.”

Minister Paudel said the regulation would require all educational institutions to operate schools in two levels — from pre-primary to Grade VIII, and from Grade IX to XII.

“We have formulated the regulation as per the Act, and believe it will be acceptable to all stakeholders,” he said, adding that they were willing to amend the regulation in future, if necessary.

Paudel also said they had not been able to reconstruct all quake-damaged schools and solve the issue of temporary teachers because of lack of adequate budget.

At the same programme, lawmaker Ranju Jha Thakur said the quality of education in public schools had degraded further and the Education Regulation must be implemented on time to resolve the problem.

Responding to queries from Private and Boarding School’s Organisation Nepal, Higher Secondary School’s Association Nepal, and Teacher’s Union Nepal, she said the regulation would have to be updated again in future as it had been prepared to solve only a few immediate problems.

During interaction, NPABSON President Karna Bahadur Shahi said the state was trying to displace private schools .

“We have been providing quality education by investing our own property, but the state doesn’t want us to thrive. It has been demotivating us,” said Shahi. He added that private schools had put forth many demands which must be addressed by the ministry through the new regulation.