Two different alliances of various teacher unions have announced closure of all public and private schools from Sunday.

Nepal Teachers´ Union (NTU) and Nepal Educational Republican Forum (NERF) have even threatened to postpone the district level exams of grade eight, which was scheduled to begin Sunday, indefinitely.

According to Ramesh Rupakheti, central committee member of All Nepal Teachers´ Organization (ANTO), one of the major constituents of NERF, District Exams Committee (DEC) of Kathmandu, headed by Local Development Officer (LDO), has already decided to halt grade eight exams in the capital.

“The DECs in all 75 districts will halt grade eight exams,” said Rupakheti.

More than 40,000 schools -- about 32,000 public and 8,000 private -- will be forcibly shut down from Sunday.

As part of their ongoing educational strike, the NTU and the NERF will even stage a relay sit-in in front of all District Education Offices (DEOs) from Tuesday. The two agitating alliances of teacher associations will even bar DEO staff from working from Tuesday.

NTU and NERF decided to launch fourth phase of strike on Saturday, accusing the Ministry of Education (MoE) of not addressing the 42-point demands of teacher associations.

Previously, on Friday, MoE had decided to acknowledge the service period of temporary teachers while making them permanent through an open competition apart from giving permanent status to relief quota teachers and forming an effective mechanism to look into the grievances of teachers working in private schools.

“Even before Friday, we struck deals, though not a written one, with the agitating alliances of teachers on almost all of the 42 points,” says Dr Rojnath Pandey, assistant spokesperson for MoE.

However, Baburam Adhikari, chairman of Nepal National Teachers´ Organization (NNTO), one of constituents of NTU, says, “No deal has been made so far. MoE officials are lying. MoE officials and the agitating alliances have discussed several key issues raised by teachers´ associations but a formal agreement is yet to be reached.”

NTU and NERF say they will call off their indefinite strike only if MoE signs the agreement in presence of the prime minister, speaker of the House, chief whips of all the four major political parties and vice president of National Planning Commission (NPC).

source: republica, 11 March 2012