Kathmandu, March 24:

Radha Krishna Mainali, Minister for Education and Sports today said that the development in education sector should not be hampered, no matter which party is in power.

“Education development should be able to address the unemployment problem in the country rather than creating a huge gap between the economically deprived and the well-off,” said Mainali at a seminar on Second Higher Education Project 2006, (SHEP, 2006), organised by the University Grants’ Commission (UGC).

The World Bank has agreed to provide $60 million for the higher education project that is to start this year. The strategic goals of SHEP are: improvement in quality and financial sustainability of community campuses, improvement in access of meritorious and needy students to Higher Education (HE), facilitating the phase-out of PCL from universities and strengthening the capacity of UGC and MoES to manage HE.

Dr Rajendra Dhoj Joshi, World Bank representative said the main challenge was to make SHEP-II a success in a phase of political instability. “If we could engage stakeholders in

the programmes then the project would bear fruit,” said Dr Joshi.

Professor Dr Homnath Bhattarai, UGC member-secretary, said the second higher education project would help improve the quality of higher education in the country, complementing Tribhuvan University’s recent policy of providing autonomy to constituent campuses.

According to the UGC, of the total $60 million around $40 million will be spent as reform grants and research funding sub-components; $4 million will be used for Students’ Financial Assistance, $13 million for higher secondary education and $3 million for a Strengthening Systemic Capacity.

The aim of higher education reform is giving autonomy to TU campuses and their stakeholders’ participation in management and administrative, academic and financial autonomy.