After an eight-month delay, the Tribhuvan University (TU) finally conducted its 37th convocation on Sunday. Around 3,600 students from among 38,865 eligible participated in the ceremony organised on the TU premises in Kirtipur.

The convocation, originally scheduled for November last year, was postponed as the university could not timely hold its assembly meeting that approves the number and list of students participating in the convocation.

All students who graduated from humanities and social sciences, education, science and technology, forestry, medicine, engineering and law faculties between July 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011 were eligible for the convocation ceremony. Around 90 percent of 390,000 university students pursue higher education at the TU. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, who is the ex-officio chancellor of the university, awarded 15 toppers from different faculties with gold medals and felicitated 29 PhD graduates in the programme.  Speaking on the occasion, PM Bhattarai expressed his dissatisfaction over the present state of university education. Stating that the university education has not brought the expected outcomes, he highlighted the need of reviewing the existing higher education system.

“We have adopted multi-university system in the country, however it is very unscientific, unmanaged and unbalanced,” he said. “It our duty to transform the existing universities into producers of productive human resource needed for the country.”

Security was beefed up from Balkhu to the university premises as some student unions were prepared to greet the prime minister with black flags.

source: The Kathmandu Post,9 July 2012