N-PABSAN reps meet education and labour ministers to seek amendments to School Education Bill

KATHMANDU: Officials from the National Private and Boarding Schools’ Association Nepal (N-PABSAN) met separately with Minister for Education, Science and Technology Raghuji Pant and Minister for Labour, Employment and Social Security Sharat Singh Bhandari to present written suggestions for amendments to the School Education Bill.

At the Education Ministry, N-PABSAN officials said the provisions on scholarships, the pre-primary level, the Social Security Fund (SSF) and institutional schools were impractical and demanded changes. They argued that requiring full scholarships would push up fees, burden working-class parents and risk forcing children from middle-income families to leave school. They called for the scholarship provision to be reconsidered and insisted that the pre-primary level be extended from two to three years in line with international standards.

N-PABSAN also called for SSF participation to be optional rather than mandatory. Its written proposals included allowing schools registered as companies to continue operating, arranging phased permission for different educational levels, maintaining the current 60/40 system for teacher salaries and allowances and ensuring scholarship distribution does not directly affect fees. The association presented a vision for developing Nepal as an educational hub by introducing information technology, computer science and artificial intelligence at school level.

To discuss SSF-related issues, N-PABSAN officials met Minister Bhandari. He said efforts would be made to make the SSF flexible according to the nature and sector of employment and committed to reducing the current 31% contribution rate. He assured them that the draft Education Bill would be amended to prevent direct fee increases and clarified that schools registered as companies cannot be classed as non-profit, a matter under detailed review as part of government revenue policy.

N-PABSAN expressed its expectation that the new School Education Act, being formulated after a lengthy interval, will prove a historic milestone for students, parents, investors and the wider education sector. The association also urged that schools be recognised as zones of peace and stated it is not in favour of closures or strikes.

The meetings were attended by N-PABSAN President Gita Rana; immediate past president Pandab Hamal, former president Ritu Raj Sapkota, Senior Vice President Surya Bahadir Adhikari, Vice President Kumar Bahadur Bhattarai, and General Secretary Pratap Bahadur Thapa.