Teachers to shut TU campuses, research centres

Tribhuvan University Teachers’ Association (TUTA) today said it will shut down all constituent campuses and research centres of the TU, the country’s oldest and largest university, on July 12 and 13 to press the government to provide them hiked salary and uniform allowances.

Organising a press meet in Kathmandu, Yogendra Narayan Barbariya, TUTA president, said the TU teachers have been deprived of their hiked salary and uniform allowances of this fiscal, though the next fiscal is just a week away.

He said, “We urged the TU and University Grants Commission (UGC) to provide us hiked salary, but to no avail. We had to announce this protest to make them address our demands.”

Barbariya said they had also issued a week’s ultimatum to authorities concerned on June 21 before announcing the protest, but no one paid heed.

The teachers’ body warned that it will launch a strident protest if the TU and the UGC fail to provide them hiked salary within this fiscal. Meanwhile, Ganesh Man Gurung, UGC chairman, said UGC wanted TU to provide the hiked salary from its sources but it did not. He said about 14,000 professors and employees have been working at the TU and Rs 760 million is needed to provide them hiked salary and dress allowances. He further said that same is the case at the Nepal Sanskrit University.

He said, “Teachers at the Sanskrit university have also been deprived of their hiked salary and dress allowances since the beginning of this fiscal.” Gurung said UGC needed Rs 50 million for the Sanskrit university where 985 professors and employees have been working.

TUTA has put forth a 22-point charter of demands, including the introduction of four-year bachelors’ degree, reforms in the education and examination system of the TU, accident insurance for professors and declaration of the TU as the central university.