The University Grants Commission (UGC) has been established to support all universities in Nepal. It has a huge responsibility of devising higher education policies, preparing criteria for the establishment of new universities, monitoring and controlling quality through high-level research activities and providing grants in order to make them capable of competing with internationally renowned universities.

However, in practice, UGC has been functioning only as the distributor of funds that it receives from the government. Moreover, a huge chunk of the funds that it distributes is consumed by Tribhuvan University (TU) alone, leaving a very small amount for other universities. That is why the UGC has been working as Tribhuvan University Grants Commission rather than a common UGC for all universities in Nepal. The chairperson and member-secretary of the UGC and other members of the Commission have always been nominated from TU. At a time when Nepal is mulling over the concept of multi-universities, isn’t it sheer injustice to other universities that they cannot elect their representatives to the UGC?

Recently, the government decided to establish four new universities. And the UGC is playing an instrumental role in planning for those universities. Unfortunately the coordinators of all the proposed universities are from TU.

How can TU provide models for other universities when its existence itself is in crisis? There’s no point in establishing new universities in the western and far-western regions if they are going to be replicas of TU. The government’s liability to support the newly-established universities will run to billions. It is hence committing a serious mistake.

The reason the government and UGC representatives think so narrow-mindedly is mainly political. Whether it is the Minister for Education or the Chair of UGC or the VC of TU, all are from the same political parties. They want their say in deciding the fate of higher education in the country.

Second reason is the lack of vision.

On one hand the Education Policy Committee (EPC) has endorsed a new Higher Education Bill (to be submitted to the parliament) to improve higher education in Nepal (and enlist the criteria for establishment of new universities).

On the other, the MoES and UGC are planning to establish new universities by sidelining the EPC. This is double standard on the part of MoES. All these facts indicate that the government is not serious about improving higher education in Nepal. From the Ninth Plan onwards, the government seems committed to managing higher education on a cost-recovery basis.

However, in practice, the government is pouring more money into TU year after year without getting much improvement on the ground.

These anomalies exist simply because the government is not clear about the future course of higher education. It is neither creative, nor does it listen to others who can guide it on the right path. In this context, the UGC plan to collect suggestions for streamlining new universities is meaningless. In the past, the UGC itself established a committee to review higher education and suggest new higher education policies. Many volumes of reports were presented by that committee. Later, it did nothing but shelve the reports. Last year, MoES formed a committee to review past exercises and come up with a sound higher education policy for Nepal.

The committee submitted its report to the Minister for Education, based on which the Higher Education Bill was prepared. In fact, this process is still in progress. Discarding all past exercises and making new committees for new universities would only be a farce. This is purely a matter of bestowing political favours. One can find plenty of politically active professors at TU. This is also the reason UGC is full of TU personnel.

The country now needs to have a National Education Commission led by the country’s renowned educationists who should be given the responsibility of reforming Nepal’s education system from pre-primary right up to the highest level. The Commission is also needed in the new context of Nepal heading towards a democratic republican set-up.

Moreover, the expected structure of the country after the CA polls and general election should also be kept in mind so that all the States or Provinces can get proper guidelines from the centre to devise their own education systems.

At a time when the country is at the crossroads, the kind of exercises the government is currently engaged in is worthless. It is engaged in ad hoc thinking, which is leading the country nowhere. UGC should come forward as representative of all universities in Nepal and demonstrate its willingness to raise the quality of higher education rather than only involving itself in distributing government funds and/or spending the grants received from the World Bank.

Dr Wagley is an educationist