A university is a place to advance learning. It is also a place to connect to networks, collaborate to further knowledge, and eventually to attain the certification of having succeeded in amassing knowledge. For these reasons, the university’s credibility is all-important: Professors want to work in institutions that will attract the best researchers and open up connections; students want to attend places of higher learning that provide them with the best avenue for growth. All of this plays back to the idea of credibility. Instances of cronyism, corruption, plagiarism and politicisation can easily bury a university that was once revered. Reports of Kathmandu University in turmoil due to politicisation are worrying; it is especially alarming because this institution was afforded much more credibility than any other Nepali university. If Kathmandu University fails to regain its reputation, it will be destroyed from inside—leaving a hollow shell behind.

Take Tribhuvan University, for instance. The country’s oldest and largest university is infamous for its poor management and lack of quality teaching and innovation. But it was not always so. Tribhuvan University was largely considered the best among Nepali institutions of higher learning for years. The research produced here was cited by scholars all over the world, and its degrees were held in high regard by employers as well as institutions abroad. However, in recent years, Tribhuvan University has become a centre of anomalies. In July 2019, it was found that senior officials were manipulating the marks of candidates that had applied for jobs. Moreover, a culture of cheating and plagiarism has seeped in; the degrees from Tribhuvan University do not hold the same prestige anymore. But all of Tribhuvan University’s problems, much like the problems of most universities in Nepal, are related to politicisation.

It was the manoeuvrings of and negotiations between the major political parties that began to degrade universities in Nepal to begin with. The parties negotiated for years to add more public universities, most overlapping in scope and geography, even when the ones running barely had enough students to stay open. The year 2018 saw the introduction of Nepal’s 14th public university. For years, the political parties also divvied up the posts of vice-chancellor, rector and registrar to these universities among themselves, instead of adhering to an independent hiring mechanism. This, in turn, led to appointed officials manipulating the system to hire professors that they know, over people that deserved to be hired. At the other end, students and professors, with political backing, find that it is okay to padlock buildings and disrupt classes and exams as a sign of protest—not realising that their very action further erodes the institutions’ credibility.

When public higher education institutions were facing criticism, Kathmandu University had escaped reproach. This was because, due to the nature of its Academic Council and University Senate, the political appointment of the vice-chancellor was thought to not have affected its independence. However, news of the unilateral decision-making of Vice-Chancellor Ram Kantha Makaju, along with the allegation of financial impropriety, is extremely troubling. Equally vexing is the protesting employee’s resorting to the obstruction of classes and exams to have their demands met.

It is clear from the numerous sources from within Kathmandu University that Makaju’s monopolising of authority is not working. It does not matter whether the decision-making brought personal gain to the vice-chancellor or not, he should realise how his perceived actions have torn the fabric of trust among faculty members and other employees. At the same time, the staff’s obstructing of the one thing a university stands for—the pursuit of academia—goes against what they claim to fight for. If classes are obstructed further, Kathmandu University will lose its credibility. The Dhulikhel-based university needs only to look toward Kirtipur to see what politicisation and strife can do to a revered institution.

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