A meeting between student unions affiliated to various political parties and the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) today ended inconclusively with the unions serving a 24-hour ultimatum to the latter. 

 

Student unions have padlocked the office of the vice chairman, member secretary, administration section, Office of the Controller of Examination and Accreditation Division with various demands. These include cancellation of exams for awarding scholarship in nursing and general medicine as question papers had been leaked before the exam; and implementation of fee structure determined by the high level committee last year.

 

Question papers of the entrance exam held at the Eastern region examination centre on July 19 for various subjects of Intermediate and Diploma Level degrees were reportedly leaked before the exams began.

 

U P Lamichhane, spokesperson, Nepal Student Union said they gave a 24-hour ultimatum to CTEVT representatives to come with answers regarding their demands.

 

He said, “As representatives were not able to assure us on fulfilment of the demands, the meeting was of no use. Therefore, we adjourned the meeting today asking them to come with answers on whether or not they can fulfil our demands.”

 

Meanwhile, Ram Hari Lamichhane, director, Technical Division, CTEVT said that they don’t have authority to cancel all the exams for awarding scholarship without a report from the investigation committee.

 

He said, “We have formed a three-member independent investigation committee under the coordination of Surya Prasad Gautam, director, National Centre for Educational Development, which will submit its report next week.”

 

He said the students were not ready to talk on other issues without assurance that the scholarship exam would be cancelled, therefore they could not talk on other issues and the meeting ended inconclusively.

 

Last year, high-level fees fixation and monitoring committee had determined fee structure for CTEVT affiliated academic institutions at around Rs 396,360 for the proficiency certificate level, Rs 281,656 for Diploma in Pharmacy programme and Rs 346,923 for the General Medicine programme under the Proficiency Certificate level.

 

Gautam assured that they have been implementing the fee structure determined by the high-level committee.

 

“If we get any complaint from parents regarding CTEVT affiliated colleges charging exorbitant fee from students, we will take immediate action,” he assured. 

 

He further said that they were going to sit for talks tomorrow as well.

 

(Source: The Himalayantimes)