The Nepal Students’ Union (NSU), student wing of the Nepali Congress, has said that it will never resort to shut-down of academic institutions as a tool for its protest.

NSU will fully adhere to government’s decision of declaring schools “zone of peace”, said the union has said.

At a press meet organised to make public the decisions of its first Central Working Committee meeting in the Capital on Wednesday, the NSU also announced that it will not issue membership

to students below 16 years

of age.

Currently, student unions including the NSU have their organisations in schools as well. Nain Singh Mahar, the newly elected president of the NSU, said that the NSU will fully follow the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child 1959 which prevents engagement of children below 16 years of age in political activities.

“I urge others unions to join hands in our initiative,” Mahar said, adding that the union will try is best to stop politicisation of the academic sector. Stating that the trend of appointing officials in the universities and colleges under political quota has resulted in politicisation of academic institutions, the NSU has also called for making appointments through open competition.

Mahar also demanded that Tribhuvan University hold Free Student Union election on February 25 next year at any cost. The biennial elections of the unions in the colleges and universities have not been held for the last seven years.

The NSU has also decided to build pressure on the government to establish one engineering college, one medical college and one agriculture college in each seven provinces and set up polytechnic institutes in all the village and municipal councils.