With semester examinations just days away, students from Gokuleshwar Multiple Campus in Darchula have travelled to the central office of Far Western University in Mahendranagar, protesting the prolonged absence of subject teachers, mainly the mathematics teacher. The students accompanied some professors to pressure the university to fill the vacant posts.

Omkar Joshi, a sixth-semester science student, said examinations are scheduled to begin on February 6, but students have been forced to prepare for exams without a mathematics teacher. “We repeatedly asked the campus and the university to send a maths lecturer, but nobody listened. We even locked the campus for nearly 20 days in protest, yet our demand was ignored,” said Joshi.

Gokuleshwar Multiple Campus was affiliated with Far Western University in 2018. Campus chief Paramal Singh Mahara said that despite the administrative merger, neither human resources nor infrastructure had improved. “The campus still operates with the same manpower it had before integration,” said Mahara.

Previously, associate professor Madan Bahadur Chand taught mathematics in the science faculty. Around two and a half years ago, he was deputed to the university’s central office, later working for a year at the dean’s office of the science faculty, before being transferred permanently to the central campus in Mahendranagar.

“After his transfer, a lecturer from the education faculty has been teaching us, but that does not cover our syllabus,” said Dipak Singh Thagunna, a fifth-semester BSc student. “We requested the administration and the university to bring Chand sir back, but no one responded,” he added.

Sunil Dangi, president of the student union at the campus, said that demands for teachers had been raised for two years. “When locking the campus also failed, we had no option but to come here,” he added.

Six students and campus chief Mahara travelled to Mahendranagar, the district headquarters of Kanchanpur, to meet Vice-chancellor Prof Hem Raj Pant, Registrar Prof Binod Lekhak, and Science Dean Prem Singh Saud. However, Pant and Lekhak were in Kathmandu. Mahara said Dean Saud assured them that necessary staffing would be arranged soon.

Teacher shortages extend beyond mathematics. The campus also lacks a zoology lecturer, with a botany teacher currently handling the subject.

“This is academically inappropriate. It is like a Nepali teacher teaching English,” said dean Saud. He added that education faculty teachers should not teach science subjects and said he had instructed staff accordingly.

Saud said he learned of the issue only after students approached him, adding that online classes could be arranged using teachers from the central campus. Chronic staff shortages at Far Western University’s remote campus highlight how administrative delays and centralised decision-making continue to undermine academic quality in the region.