MANISHA KOIRALA DIVORCES SAMRAT DAHAL Kathmandu, 29 July: Manisha Koirala divorced husband Sahrat Dahal severalweeks ago, Indian online reports quoting unidentified friends of Mansha said. The couple was married one year ago. Reports said Manisha was living intension after the maarragie. nnnn OPINION CHAOTIC UNIVERSITIES Kathmandu, 29 July: If a state of emergency were to be clamped anywhere in Nepal, the state-funded universities would deserve the front row for scrutiny and appropriate action. Tribhuvan University, the country’s oldest institution of its kind, would obviously take the top slot, as it accounts for more than 80 per cent of the total number of university- going students, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review. . Almost everything with TU has gone wrong because of rank poor management. Politicization has affected all units and sections. Those contributing to this have no qualms about it. All are agreed that TU and other universities are gradually going down the hill. In the case of the oldest university, enrollment of students in the constituent campuses under the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences has dropped as if an epidemic has struck across the country. According to a senior TU administrative source, the constituent campuses eat up resources very fast but producing very little “with the trend showing that in a few years’ time they will just collapse.” Thousands of teachers and other staff members gobble up much of the university’s resources whereas the number of students in this stream had dwindled to dangerous extent. “Even if the student numbers have declined, the teachers and staff cannot be laid off. Instead they demand to be promoted,” the source said. Many of the TU constituent campuses are plagued by a situation where there are more teachers than regular students enrolled in some departments under the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. TU in 2011 announced an academic schedule for 2011-12 that the Master’s exams would be held in the second week of April 2012 and the course had to be completed by March-end. However, it now seems that the exams will not be held even in August, i.e. five months after the completion of the course classes were enforced in a great rush. Some students suffered the suspense of undue delay in the publication of results that took up more than 11 months. No one takes the responsibility for the delay the like of which does not happen anywhere else in South Asia, not even in Bangladesh where strikes and students politics are large in numbers and expanse. While the student wings of various political parties function loyally in keeping with the agendas of their political mentors, university and campus teachers in large numbers are active members of the political parties. Whether such activity affects the academic environment or not is indicated by the dwindling quality of education. Classes in the constituent campuses are supposed to be completed within seven months, including the long Dashain and Tihar holidays apart from numerous other public holidays. Students’ strikes, pen-down strikes by teachers and strikes called by political parties and trade unions all combine to conspire against a congenial academic atmosphere. At a time when TU is burdened with falling enrollment figures, it faces another problem raised by part time teachers who want regular contract and imitation of a sure-shot procedure for regularizing their services “after completing due process.” In simple language, they want to be made permanent staff even if they do not have enough working load to carry and even if the number of students is falls fast. In February 2010, the Supreme Court directed TU not to renew the contract of 1,380 lecturers appointed on contract basis. Intense political pressure made the university officials dodge the directive. There is a discrepancy shown by the pass percentage statistics of various campuses under different universities. The Purbanchal University records a pass percentage of 90 or more as against less than 20 per cent by the campuses under the country’s oldest university which accounts for an overwhelming majority of higher education students. Pokhara University, too, matches Purbanchal University’s experence. If Purbanchal and Pokhara have basically confined themselves to serving as rent-seeking institutions without opening their own faculties and expanding direct reach, Surkhet faces a situation even worse. Surkhet University is facing the prospect of being grounded even before taking off since campuses in its part of the region are not interested in being affiliated with it. A better and practical option for it would be to distribute affiliation to nursing and medical campuses, for which there are many potential applicants that find the route to make rich profits quickly. Nursing and medical campuses for reasons that can only be guessed seem keen to obtain permission from rent-seeking that demand hefty sums annually. They would prefer affiliation with the Tribhuvan University but the latter is too exacting with the private campuses, although its own management is dismal. For a decade TU has been promising to publish results of exams within three months after exams. Every year, the promise has been broken and now the delay has broken all records. Individuals who go after political leaders for top university and campus positions would contribute significantly if they only showed half the zeal in taking classes regularly and with necessary preparations. Once some of them manage to get the posts sought, they hardly take any initiatives for streaming the administration and upgrading the quality of education. It is absurd that while most streams under TU have begun introducing four-year Bachelor’s level courses, the Humanities and Social Sciences stream is likely to wait longer for the course to be introduced. The reason could be that most departments have recorded sharp drop in the number of students enrolled. Introduction of a four-year course for the Bachelor’s level, it is feared, would dissuade more students from spending four years in a stream that no longer is in much demand in terms of job prospects or social station. The result is that we have different systems for the same individual university. But who cares for such discrepancy? Politicking is killing the prospects of improvement. Likewise there is much pressure for not only quick promotions for TU staff but also for making permanent all who are working on wages basis. The demand is to make them all permanent staff “after completing due process.” That means the procedure to be applied is sought to be nothing more than a formality. Special emphasis needs to be put on quality education in the various academic disciplines that are in demand. Policy makers and those who managed to obtain senior positions in TU management have failed us all for years. Nothing short of an emergency administration will raise popular hopes for improvement. nnnn