Youth from opposition camp shut academic institutions

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: Seventeen youth and students affiliated to various opposition political parties today shut all academic institutions under the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT) and a number of Plus Two colleges with foreign names and foreign investment demanding an end to all kinds of irregularities in the education sector.

Regular classes of the CTEVT affiliated academic institutions and Plus Two colleges were halted due to the protest.

The youth and students’ unions have been protesting since last month against the anomalies in the sector, including the use of foreign names by Plus Two colleges, display of big hoarding boards in different parts of the city and collection of exorbitant fees from students, among others.

They have been padlocking the offices of vice chairperson and member- secretary of CTEVT and Higher Secondary Education Board since last week.

Youths and students from the opposition camp today boycotted the government programme organised to mark the 13th International Youth Day.

They also showed black flags to Vice President

Paramanda Jha at Exhibition Road while he was going to participate a programme of the Ministry of Youth and Sports at National Assembly Hall.

CPN-UML-aligned Youth Federation Nepal (YFN), All Nepal National Free Students Union, Nepali Congress aligned Nepal Tarun Dal, Nepal Students’ Union (NSU) and All Nepal National Free Students’ Union- (ANNFSU- sixth) are among the 17 youth and student associations who have been jointly staging protest programmes.

The youth and students from the opposition camp aim to topple the Baburam Bhattarai-led government. Today, they clashed with security personnel while the latter tried to stop students from showing black flags to Vice President. Ramesh Poudel, secretariat member, YFN, said they were scheduled to show black flags to PM Bhattarai but could not do so as he did not attend the programme.

He said boycotting today’s programme was part of protests against the government, launched jointly by 17 youth and student unions.

“Currently we are organising protests to make the government quit as it has become ‘unconstitutional’ after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly,” he said, “Therefore we had decided not to take part in any of the government-organised formal programmes.”