Miscellaneous
MoF yet to give nod to education regulation
The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is delaying the approval of an education regulation that is necessary for the implementation Education Act (eighth amendment) that envisages golden handshake to temporary teachers and restructuring school education.The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is delaying the approval of an education regulation that is necessary for the implementation Education Act (eighth amendment) that envisages golden handshake to temporary teachers and restructuring school education.
The Ministry of Education had forwarded the draft regulation to the MoF two weeks ago for its consent. As the MoF allocates the budget its consent is mandatory before an endorsement of any regulation. Parliament had endorsed the regulation six months ago in line with the eighth amendment in the Education Act. The MoF has estimated it would cost around Rs 27 billion to implement the regulation which is not possible to manage in the current fiscal year.
A golden handshake for around 14,000 temporary teachers will cost an estimated Rs 5.5 billion to the state coffers. Similarly, around 30,000 female volunteers who double up as teachers both at Early Childhood Development classes and the basic education programme will cost over Rs 7 billion annually. The volunteers, who have been drawing just Rs3,000 a month, will get the salary on par with the basic education teachers who draw around Rs22,000 monthly. “The regulation is a must to implement the Act. However, it’s up to the MoF to decide,” said Education Minister Dhani Ram Poudel at an interaction on Tuesday.
As the regulation aims to bring Plus Two colleges under the school education, the MoE will have to give appointment letters to all the teachers of Grade 11 and 12 in the community higher secondary schools. At present, the government pays salary to just two teachers from each community HSS. There are five teachers in each of the 2,500 community HSS across the country.