Cross-party students unions have extended their support to education stream students from the Tribhuvan University in their ongoing protest, demanding that the government scrap the controversial ninth amendment to Education Act-1972 which has opened the door for temporary teachers to attain the permanent status without taking a competitive test.

The student wings of Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) have asked the government to resolve the issue through talks.

The education stream students who have acquired the teaching licence have been on a hunger strike on the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) office premises in Sano Thimi since the TSC announced the vacancies as per a provision in the amendment.

“Our protest will continue until our demands are met,” said Nirajan Shrestha, secretary of the agitating students’ struggle committee. They are awaiting Supreme Court (SC) verdicts on three cases filed against the amendment to the Act and vacancy called by the commission.

The SC on Wednesday issued a show cause against the government, asking it to clarify the provision in the Act and why it had to call vacancy within seven days. Despite objection from various quarters, Parliament on September 19 had endorsed the ninth amendment to the Act, opening the door for hundreds of temporary teachers to get state benefits even if they fail the TSC test for permanent teachers.

The latest amendment cleared the decks for announcing internal vacancies for temporary teachers who were recruited before August 6, 2004. These temporary teachers will be now eligible to get the permanent status if they secure just 40 marks—the minimum passing score. It also made way for the TSC to allocate 75 percent reservation for the temporary teachers recruited between August 6, 2004 and July 29, 2016.

The government has issued 700,000 teaching licences to those who succeeded in tests, which has been a mandatory provision for appointing teachers until the new change. The agitating students have claimed that the government and the political parties are conspiring to destroy the public education. Over six million students study in around 29,000 public schools across the nation. There are around 26,000 temporary teachers who landed jobs in the schools on the back their political patronage.