Kathmandu, May 31

All the public and the private schools in Kathmandu valley remained closed on Sunday due to the strike jointly called by the Institutional Schools’ Teachers’ Union (ISTU) and the Nepal Educational Republic Forum (NERF).

According to Hom Kumar Thapa, the president of ISTU, the strike was announced to draw the government’s attention to implement the agreements signed on April 2, 2007.The organisers have also demanded with the government to enforce the recommendation of the task-force formed under the coordination of Janardan Nepal, a joint secretary at the Ministry of Education. “The government had earlier agreed to grant permanent status to the temporary teachers and to provide comparable perk to the employee of the private schools to those of public schools,” Thapa clarified.

A rally, of around 15,000 teachers and school employees from across the country, was organised before handing over a memorandum to Ram Swarop Sinha, a secretary at the Ministry of Education .

Addressing the demands of the teachers and the school employees, Sinha assured that the government would fulfil the demands and implement the recommendations made by the task-force in the past. He added the employees of private schools would also be receiving the perk comparable to those in public schools. He blamed political instability to have hindered the implementation of the signed agreement.