The administrative staff at public schools across the country have accused the government of cheating them as the national budget fails to address the agreements reached with them a few months back.

The government and the Nepal Public School Employees' Council had on February 2 reached an agreement where the former agreed to adjust their salaries on par with that of civil servants of corresponding levels. The government’s policies and programmes for the upcoming fiscal year had promised to address the demands. However, the pledge was missing in the budget presented in the House of Representatives on Monday.

“The government has cheated us. There is no budget to increase our payment despite the government having signed an agreement with us,” Gangaram Tiwari, chairperson of the council, told the Post. “We have been left with no option, but to start a fresh protest.”

As per the agreement, the Ministry of Education had promised to increase the salary of account assistants to Rs32,095 per month, which is equivalent to that of non-gazetted second class staffers, from the current Rs13,000. Also, the government had agreed to hike the monthly pay of school support staff to Rs24,702, which is equal to that of office helps under the civil service.

The government has to release additional Rs7.2 billion to adjust their salaries.

To press their demands, the council has decided that administrative staff will stop work at all public schools starting Sunday. The council said all 39,068 school support staff and account assistants will stage a sit-in at the education units in districts until June 9. It has threatened to launch a weeklong relay hunger strike starting June 10 for a week if the demands go unheard by June 9.

“We will stop teaching and learning at schools for an indefinite period starting June 17, if our demands are continuously ignored,” reads a statement by the council. Among the total staff, 7,178 are account assistants while the remaining are school support staff. Close to 4 million students study in over 29,000 community schools across the country.

Tiwari said they have forwarded their list of demands also to the Ministry Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs besides the Education Ministry. Last year they were in agitation for over six months from August before the Education Ministry agreed to seal a deal with them. Most of these staffers were hired without competition.