The Ministry of Education is preparing to create positions for thousands of teachers in higher secondary community schools.

Higher secondary level studies started in 1992, but till date, there are no permanent positions for teachers at the Plus- Two level. Currently, the government provides grants to 4,000 full time teachers in community Plus Two schools.

Teachers working in higher secondary community schools have long been demanding permanent positions.

Rose Nath Pande, assistant spokesperson, MoE today said though they had requested Ministry of Finance (MoF) to create permanent positions for higher secondary teachers, but nothing significant had been done.

“Recently, we received a letter from the Prime Minister’s Office directing us to give high priority to this issue, therefore, we are sending the same letter to MoF,” he said.

MoE has been providing grants equal to two teachers to community higher secondary schools with Education, Humanities and Management faculties and grants equal to three teachers to schools with Science faculty. Grants equal to four teachers have been provided to five districts of Karnali region — Dolpa, Humla, Jumla, Kalikot, Mugu and four other districts namely Jajarkot, Bajhang, Bajura and Accham.

Deepak Raj Subedi, president, Higher Secondary School Teachers’ Association Nepal (HISTAN) said the government was unwilling to provide permanent position to community higher secondary school teachers. He said MoF had reached agreement with donors not to create permanent positions in schools. So it created temporary teachers with programmes such as Per Child Funding teachers and Relief Teachers to provide grants.

“We had sought 4,000 positions when there were only 1,313 community Plus-Two colleges, but the number has reached 2,600 now, the number of positions should also be increased,” he added.

Community higher secondary schools need to complete one cycle of Plus-Two level to get grants for teachers, which means that one batch of Grade XI and XII should complete their course for government grants.

source: The Himalayan Times,19 jan 2013