KATHMANDU: The government is working on drafting a new bill for the proper management of higher education sector in the country.

Talking to The Himalayan Times, Prof Dr Tirtha Khaniya, member, National Planning Commission, today said that discussions were on to drafting the bill to properly guide the higher education sector.

“At a time when a number of universities have been established and some new universities are in the pipeline, a new bill is a must to maintain uniformity among the universities.”

Half a dozen universities have already been established in the country. All of them are functioning with their own rules and regulations due to the lack of common regulatory law.

According to Prof Dr Khaniya, the new bill also aims at changing the provision of having the Prime Minister as the chancellor

of the university.

“Anyone such as professor, legal expert or any education expert can be the chancellor as per the draft of the bill,” he revealed.

“PM being chancellor in all the universities is not possible when there will be many universities. Therefore, we are going to bring some changes in it,” he said

Bhoj Raj Kafle, chief of higher education at the Ministry of Education, said that they were in the final stage to this regard.

“According to the new bill, academic council will be set up under the chairmanship of PM which will decide the name of vice-chancellors of respective university,” he said.

He suspected that the final draft might come up with certain changes because they were yet to give it a final touch. “As soon as we complete working on the draft, we will send it to the Ministry of Law before it goes to Cabinet for approval,” he added.