School teachers from across the country are preparing to descend on the capital for street protests to pressure the government into endorsing the School Education Bill.

The Nepal Teachers' Federation, an umbrella body of the teachers, has warned the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology that it will launch a fresh protest if the government does not heed its demands. Laxmi Kishore Subedi, the federation’s chair, said they have decided to take to the streets to ensure the enactment of the School Education Act by addressing the issues previously agreed upon with them. He said their protest will continue as long as the federal parliament doesn’t endorse the bill.

The federation has called its central committee meeting for January 29 and 30 to decide on the modality of protest.

Right after the government introduced the bill in the federal parliament in September 2023, the federation staged a Kathmandu-centric agitation objecting to different provisions in the law. Thousands of teachers staged protests in Kathmandu, disrupting life in the capital city and forcing the government into a dialogue.

They withdrew the protest after sealing a six-point deal with the government which promised to address their demands by revising the bill.

The teachers are preparing for similar protests as the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the House of Representatives expedites deliberations over the bill. Currently, a subpanel within the House committee is holding provincial-level deliberations on the bill.

The subpanel has received mutually conflicting suggestions on several issues including teacher management. As the constitution lists the school education as absolute authority of the local government, local units want school teachers to fall under their jurisdiction. However, teachers don’t want to stay under local authorities claiming there are high chances that the local government will treat them based on the political leanings of the local governments.

On different occasions, the federal government has reached an agreement with them to keep them under the federal government.

Enactment of the Act is a must to implement the Constitution of Nepal which can delegate most of the authority to manage the education sector at the local and provincial level. However, almost a decade after the constitution came into force, the country is yet to get the Act.

The teachers claim their protest is necessary to ensure the bill gets through parliament.

However, Education Minister Bidya Bhattarai has urged teachers to focus on classrooms rather than engaging in protests. She noted that the protest would have been necessary in the past as there were limited platforms for teachers to discuss issues with the government, which no longer is the case.

Only on Monday, the teacher’s representatives had met Bhattarai to draw her attention to endorsing the bill.

“The government has set a target of 70 percent graduation in the Secondary Education Examinations (SEE). This is the time for teachers to be in the classrooms, not on the streets,” she said addressing an event on Thursday. This year’s SEE commences on March 20 and will end on April 1.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has been claiming that the SEE graduation rate, which is currently hovering around 48 percent, will increase to 70 percent.

Bhattarai said if the teachers’ federation considers itself the leaders of the teachers, it should focus on addressing today's challenges facing the education sector rather than hitting the streets.

She also recalled that teachers have challenges of protecting themselves from the allegations that they are political activists. When Sumana Shrestha was education minister she began an initiative to take action against the politically affiliated school teachers. Though the incumbent minister also has pledged to continue the initiative the ruling parties are not happy with the move.