Kathmandu, January 27:

The Nepal Teachers’ Union (NTU) today served the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) a 35-day ultimatum to meet its 16-points educational demands.

Submitting the memorandum to the education minister, the NTU said the government needed to implement the agreement it reached with the NTU a year ago, or else the teachers’

body would be compelled to go for further protest programmes.

The 16-point educational demands include providing of free education to all students upto grade 8; free secondary education for women, dalits and disabled; and the establishment of a national and district level monitoring mechanisms to monitor the remunerations of the private and community school teachers.

Other demands are: providing the children of the teachers killed due to the conflict with full scholarships, ensuring the safety of all teachers, a 25 per cent reservation for female

teachers and the adjustment of teachers’ salaries for market inflation.

Keshab Prasad Bhattarai, president of the NTU, said that if the government paid no heed to their memorandum in the next 35 days, the body would have no choice but to announce further ‘decisive’ protest programmes. “We have emphasised teachers’ training and quality education,” said Bhattarai.

Mohan Gyanwali, president of Nepal Teachers’ Association, said the government needed to join hands with the teachers as the latter’s demands are focused on increasing the quality of education.

“To increase the quality of education, the agreement signed between the teachers’ bodies and the government needs to be implemented immediately,” Gyanwali said.

Hira Prasad Nepali, president of Nepal National Teachers’ Union (NNTU), said that the teachers wanted to solve all problems related to the educational sector through dialogue, but the government was bent on creating further unrests by arresting teachers.

In order to create awareness among the teachers and education stakeholders, the NTU will organise a rally from New Baneshwor on January 30 and hold an interaction on February 23 at the central level, while, at the district level, it will organise meetings and carry out various awareness programmes on February 14.