The government is doing preparations to table a proposal on the eighth amendment to the Education Act-1971 and the Bill on Free and Compulsory Education at the Legislature-Parliament within next couple of months.

Dilli Rimal, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Education, said the government will take the amendment proposal and the Bill to the Legislature-Parliament after holding consultations with all the stakeholders. At a time when the government has been drawing flak for its alleged attempt to table the amendment proposal and the new Bill to the Legislature-Parliament without holding consultations with the stakeholders, he pledged to publish their final drafts on the website of the ministry before submitting them to the Cabinet for approval to ensure that feedbacks of all concerned were incorporated into them.

Speaking at an interaction organised by Education Journalists’ Group in the capital, Mahashram Sharma, Spokesman for the Ministry of Education, informed that preparations were being done to formulate a separate law on free and compulsory education, as it was a high-priority policy of the government. “The government is ready to allocate necessary budget to provide free education in school level,” he said. Tek Narayan Pandey, Director, Department of Education, stressed the need to incorporate a clear provision on the registration of institutional schools into the eighth amendment to the Education Act.

source: the himalayan times,22 may 2014