The government-teachers dialogue, hailed as decisive, ended inconclusively on Tuesday night despite some progress.

The talks were held between the representatives of the Nepal Teachers’ Federation and the government side, attended by Education Minister Raghuji Pant, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Bishnu Paudel and Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak.

“We presented our demands. The government has said it is positive,” said an office bearer of the federation. “We will change the modality of the protest if the Cabinet addresses our concerns. Protests, however, will be withdrawn only after the School Education Act is passed.”

The federation is ready to cooperate in conducting grade 12 tests slated for May 4 once the Cabinet decides to implement their demands.

An internal meeting of the federation held prior to the talks had decided to review its protest provided that the government agrees to the teachers’ nine-point demands. Their call includes subsidised medical treatment for teachers and school staff at all seven provincial hospitals and the Civil Service Hospital in Kathmandu.

The federation has also demanded that all temporary teaching and school staff—including relief quota teachers, temporary, contract-based, former lower secondary, learning grant-based, technical stream and special education teachers, as well as early childhood development (ECD) facilitators—should be paid for their accumulated leaves as a lump sum upon retirement.

The federation has further demanded that the salary for early childhood development facilitators, ECD facilitators and school staff be fixed at Rs32,902 per month, equivalent to that of a non-gazetted second-class government employee and that school office assistants be given Rs26,082 a month.

Additionally, the federation demands that primary-level third-grade teachers be assigned grade 10 equivalent to a Kharidar, primary-level second-grade and lower secondary third-grade teachers be given grade 10 equivalent to a non-gazetted first-class officer, and secondary first-grade teachers be paid equivalent to an undersecretary.

Similarly, the federation has demanded that teachers under both permanent and temporary quotas be provided with hardship allowances equivalent to those given to civil servants. It has also called for the enrolment of institutional and community school teachers and staff paid with private resources in the contributory Social Security Fund scheme.

The federation demands that teachers be included in the government's order of precedence and that the salaries and benefits of lower secondary level first-grade teachers be adjusted to match those of secondary level second-grade teachers in terms of grade level.