Half a dozen organisations representing the school owners, the teachers and the Maoist wings leading the agitation had signed a 19-point agreement. Now, eleven months on, two of the signatories – the ANNISU-Revolutionary and the Nepal Educational Republican Forum have threatened renewed action unless the schools put the accord into practice until the next government decides on the issue. Despite the education authorities’ warning, the school owners have significantly raised the fees across the board through a syndicated decision. Under the education law, any school that wants to raise the fees is required to propose a new fee structure two months before and obtain approval. Furthermore, the accord stipulates that the schools will not compel the guardians to buy books and uniforms from the schools. In case the schools supply educational materials, including books, they will have to give at least a 10 per cent discount on the purchases. But the schools have refused to make available the lists of the prescribed books to any parent, so that no customers might turn to outside suppliers.

The other points of the accord include the issuance of appointment letters to teachers and employees and salary increases in the private schools, taking the government pay scales as the norm. School owners claim that there is no alternative to revising upwards the fees to generate the money needed to pay more salaries. They also claim that the agreement is being implemented. It also provides that the schools may charge nothing under heads other than those specified by the educational regulations. Most of the agreement is yet to be implemented, even the minor one such as that the pupils will not be compelled to wear a tie. The breach reflects the past tendency of signing an agreement whenever things become too hot and of ignoring it when the situation cools down.

The school operators have almost always flouted the educational laws and rules that have not been to their liking. Their powerful syndicate has seriously compromised the interests of parents and pupils, making education much costlier for them than it should realistically be. The current hike is a syndicated decision, not resulting from the actual financial needs of particular schools. Admittedly, some schools cannot do without the hikes if they are to raise the salaries significantly, but others can. The latter will just have to reduce their incredibly high profit margin. Why should the parents pay, for instance, money, as some schools require, for the ostensible purpose of building the school’s physical structure? The new government should also review the existing policy of treating private schools like a charitable organisation, while allowing them to act like ruthless profiteers on the other hand. If it can wisely but firmly deal with this issue by accommodating the legitimate interests of all stakeholders, things would take a definite turn for the better. And it would also inject a degree of optimism into the hapless parents — and the public, too — that they can expect better days. It is time for the Maoists to demonstrate that they mean what they say.