THREE STAR CLUB AND MMC PLAY IS SECOND SEMIFINAL OF GURKHA CUP THURSDAY Kathmandu, 13 June: Three Star Club plays MMC in the second semifinal of the Gurkha Cup at Dashrath Rangashala Thursday. Thursday’s winner will play Tribhuvan Club of Nepal Army Saturday. Army Club qualified for the final Wednesday defeating Boys Union 3-0, nnnn CAPITAL MORNING TEMPERATURE 19 DEGREES CELSIUS Kathmandu, 13 June; Thursday morning’s capital temperature on a clear and sunny morning at seven was 19 degrees Celsius. Mercury is expected to rise to 31 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. nnnn INSURE AGRO PRODUCTION AND LIVESTOCK GOVT. TELLS INSURANCE BOARD Kathmandu, 13 June: Finance Minister Shankar Prasad Koirala Wednesday directed the Insurance Board (Beema Samiti) to implement insurance programmes in the field of crop production and livestock farming as early as possible, The Rising Nepal reports.. The government has introduced policy to expand insurance to the crop and livestock to help farmers to recoup the possible loss in the agriculture sector. FM Koirala directed the board of director and officials after inspecting the Board. Stating that the regulating body should not run away from its responsibility by pinning blame to others, he said that the board needed the manpower that had expertise on the related field. Stating that the implementation of insurance policy had not been effective even though it started many decades ago, he said that the government was effortful to reform the policies, process and legal part in order to revamp the board. FM Koirala asked officials to submit a reform draft in the upcoming budget for the purpose. “The board employees should be honest because transparency is the key to the well functioning of any institution," he said and added that the ministry would not discriminate any of them. Dr. Chiranjeevi Nepal, an economic advisor at the Ministry, stressed on the need of running all insurance companies under one window policy. Dr. Fatha Bahadur K.C, president of IB, asked the government to treat Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), Security Board of Nepal and IB equally. He also urged the government to amend the Act of board as the old laws and regulations had been hampering its works. Nnnn ALL STAKEHOLDERS RESPONSIBLE FOR POOR SLC RESULTS Kathmandu, 13 June: Educationists Wednesday stated that all stakeholders of education including teachers, students, guardians and policy makers were equally responsible for declining SLC results, The Rising Nepal reports.. Speaking at an interaction programme organized by the Education Journalists’ Network (EJON) here, education experts said the situation has arisen because the stakeholders failed to fulfill their respective responsibility. They stated that strong monitoring of authorities was essential with a provision of reward and punishment. Dr. Tirtha Parajuli said the poor result showed the students’ commitment level and teachers’ energy to learn were low. Dr. Basu Dev Kafle said that the teachers lacked profession support. "They are compelled to take a side of political parties. That could be also the reason of minimal pass per cent,' he said. Dr. Bidhya Nath Koirala blamed the students, teachers and the political parties for the poor results. "Students these days give less importance to study, the teachers are not sincere to their duty," he said. Likewise, Man Wagle, another expert, said the results showed the failure of the education system and stressed the need of reform policy in the education sector. Som Lal Subedi, Secretary at the Ministry of Education, said that the low pass percentage showed that this year the exams were conducted in a stricter manner. Lack of subject teachers and weak monitoring were also responsible for the poor results, he added. Mahashram Sharma, spokesperson at the Ministry told that several factors, including the teachers, students, system, frequent strikes and protests were responsible for the poor pass percentage. "This year, students in 62 districts had no home centers, which might have also contributed to the decline in the pass percentage," he said. Babu Ram Pokharel, chairman of the Private and Boarding School Association Nepal, urged the government to go in partnership with private schools, which have good performance. nnnn