SC moved against TU plan

KATHMANDU: After the colleges denied distributing new admission forms to aspiring students for Proficiency Certificate Level, students of some government campuses in the Valley, on the initiation of Free Students Union, today distributed admission forms to the SLC graduates.

Public Youth Campus in Chhetrapati and Saraswoti Multiple Campus, Thamel also admitted some students today afternoon as per the decision taken by the FSU. A few days ago, the student bodies had decided to admit students on their own in the PCL level if the college administration denied the same.

Prakash Chandra Sapkota, FSU president, PYC, said that they admitted three students today in management stream.

"After the concerned authorities chose to abstain from the issue despite the students unions' constant pressures on Tribhuvan University to withdraw its decision to phase out PCL, we had to take such decision to give justice to students belonging to poor families since they can not afford to the expensive Plus Two education."

He also said that the decision of TU to phase out PCL without any viable alternative was illegal. "The TU is playing with the future of thousands of students therefore TU had to accept the new admission at any cost since it could not give any alternative before taking such irresponsible decision. Besides, the TU must recognise the new admission in future."

He said that the admission process would continue till two to three months and classes will begin from mid-August.

Janak Paudel, vice chairman, FSU at SMC, said that the new admission opened by students unions was also their tactic to exert pressures on the TU to withdraw their decision and admit students in PCL.

He said that as many as 20 students were admitted in humanities and management faculties in SMC today. Some irate students of Amrit Science Campus today torched a vehicle of Nepal Electricity Authority during their protest against TU's decision. Security personnel had to fire a dozen of tear gas shells to bring the situation under control.

Demanding the same, student activists of All Nepal National Independent Students' Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R) has been staging relay hunger strike in all the PCL running campuses affiliated with TU. Lekhnath Neupane, president, ANNISU-R, said the relay hunger strike would end on Sunday and fast-unto-death before the VC’s office would follow.

KATHMANDU: A writ petition has been filed at the Supreme Court demanding its intervention against the Tribhuvan University decision of phasing out the Proficiency Certificate Level.

Advocate Ram Krishna Kafle and human rights activist Raju Thapa jointly filed the petition demanding an apex court order to the government authorities -- the Prime Minister's Office and the Cabinet, Ministry of Education and Tribhuvan University -- to announce new admissions to guarantee the people's right to education.

The petitioners claimed that the university's decision had violated the Interim Constitution of Nepal, the Tribhuvan University Act 1992 and the Higher Secondary Education Board Act 1989.

They argued that the decision would deprive about 400,000 students of opportunity for affordable higher education. — HNS