A jurisdiction row has ensued between Higher Secondary Education Board (HSEB) and Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) over the arrangement of higher studies to students who passed the School Leaving Certificate (SLC) examination under technical category .
As the Ministry of Education (MoE) plans to give the authority to HSEB, the CTEVT has warned to challenge the decision in court claiming that providing technical education solely falls under its jurisdiction.
Following the directives from Parliamentary Committee on Women, Children, Elderly citizen and Social Welfare on April 20, the MoE had formed a study committee led by Tanka Nath Sharma. The committee has recommended starting Grade 11 and 12 education in the respective schools with the affiliation of HSEB. As many as 3,288 students took the SLC examinations under the technical category from 99 schools.
Though the students under the general category have already started their admission process, those opting for technical education are still in dilemma as the MoE is yet to take the decision owing to the jurisdiction row. Ram Hari Lamichhane, member-secretary at CTEVT, claimed that it would be illegal if the MoE decides to give the right to run technical classes to other institutions. He also said that the Council is capable to provide higher education to all the students.
“We will challenge the decision in court if our rights are curtailed,” he said in a press conference on Friday.
The CTEVT has been providing diploma courses in various subjects that equals to the intermediate degree. Lamichhane claimed that technical education has to be for three years in the intermediate level but the HSEB can only run two-year programmes, which will not be recognised abroad. The Council has already called for applications from the 99 schools if they wish to run higher studies under its affiliation.
HSEB officials have a different take on the issue. They claim that there are three options for TSCL students. They can join diploma courses of CTEVT or take Science stream under general category or join technical education. “This should not be a complex matter,” said Chaitanya Sharma, vice-chairman at HSEB, adding that students should be given every choice on what they want to study.
Sharma asked the MoE to immediately take a decision so that the new academic session for technical students can be started together with the general category that begins on August 2.
The government started technical education at the school level two years ago, allowing students to take up Agriculture, IT and Engineering subjects in Grades 9 and 10. The students under the category took the SLC test for the first time this year.
Source: Published in The Kathmandu post on 6th July 2015.
