Kathmandu, August 28 :

Though an agreement on launching the much-awaited $60 million higher education project (HEP) II has not yet been inked, the University Grants Commission has begun collecting base line data of constituent campuses of 5 universities.

Professor Dr Kamal Krishna Joshi, the UGC chairman, said, “Due to recent turn of political events, the signing of the agreement has been delayed. “The agreement is most likely to be signed on November 15.

Spadework for the project has been started. Once the agreement is signed, the project

will kick off,” he said.

Collection of the data will pave the way for providing autonomy to the constituent campuses of the five universities.

The World Bank (WB) has agreed to provide $50 million as grant and $10 million as soft loan for five years to carry out reforms in the higher education sector. Professor Dr Hriday Ratna Bajrcharya has been appointed as technical consultant for the Higher Education Project II.

Though the agreement between the WB and the government was scheduled to be signed on January 23 this year at the WB head office in Washington DC, the same was postponed for 11 months owing to recent turn of political events in the country.

“The HEP II is expected to bring about a drastic change in the higher education sector, especially in providing autonomy to constituent campuses of the Tribhuvan University, providing loan to students, transformation of schools into higher secondary institutions (Grade XII level) and strengthening the UGC and the Education Ministry,” said Dr Joshi. The five-year project comprise reform grants ($38 million), financial assistance for students ($7 million), Higher secondary education ($13 million) and strengthening the systemic capacity of the UGC and the Education Ministry ($2 million).Under the proposed project, the UGC will be the focal point for higher-level education and the Department of Education (DoE) will be the focal point for Higher Secondary and school-level education. While the UGC will receive $48 million, the DoE will receive $12 million.

A WB mission, during its visit here in November 2005, had accepted the appraisal document for the HEP II to provide $60 million for higher education for five years.