Some private school and college proprietors who have been nominated to the Constituent Assembly have warned of obstructing parliament if a bill to amend the Education Act is tabled in parliament to convert private educational institutions into cooperatives.

Speaking at a function in Kathmandu on Thursday, CA member Baburam Pokhrel, who is also a former chair of the Private and Boarding Schools Orgainzation (PABSON), said the cooperative model is unacceptable to the private educational institutions and threatened that they would go to any extent to reject the proposed amendment.

“We will protest both in parliament and on the streets if the government conspires to turn private institutions into cooperatives,” said Pokhrel, who was nominited to the CA by the Madhesi People´s Rights Forum-Democratic.

Assuming that much of academic sector is no longer social service oriented, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has initiated a discourse for registering academic institutions as cooperatives. As per the idea, such institutions will no longer be private properties but will be owned by certain communities.

Lakshya Bahadur KC, PABSON chairperson, said that the private sector would take to the srteets if the MoE tables the act in the house to convert educational sector into cooperatives.

“This is a conspiracy against the private sector, which has been taking responsibility to uplift quality of education,” stated KC.

Likewise, Karna Bahadur Shahi, NPABSON chairperson, said that investors have been taking the risk and the government has not contributed to the growth of private academic sector.

Umesh Shrestha, chairman of the Higher Secondary School Association Nepal (HISSAN), who is also a CA member from Nepali Congress (NC), said that converting private academic sector as cooperatives was not possible.

“Imposing cooperative model in the educational sector would invite troubles as many investors have been operating institutions through loans from financial institutions,” he claimed. Shrestha also expressed solidarity with the plan to obstruct the house and stage protests, if needed.

Laxman Rajbanshi, a CA member nominated by Nepal Rashtriya Party, complained that the government did not consult stakeholders while proposing amendment to the Education Act.

“Most of the leaders from the educational sector do not know what reforms have been proposed in the act,” said Rajbanshi, adding that people might not own the change in such a situation.

source: republica,14 nov 2014