Even almost three months after the government appointed Prof Dr Ganesh Man Gurung as the chairman and Bhola Nath Pokhrel as the member secretary, the 11-member executive board of the UGC remains incomplete. [break]
The UGC board only has five members -- three of them ex-officio members from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education and the National Planning Commission (NPC) -- as of now. The government is yet to appoint six more members -- two vice chancellors (VCs), two eminent educationists and two distinguished professors.
“We are short of quorum,” Prof Dr Gurung told Republica. “This has prevented us from taking some urgently needed decisions.”
According to Prof Dr Gurung, the UGC has failed to expedite the process of drafting the policy for higher education. “Before finalizing the policy draft, we need to collect inputs from all the concerned sectors,” he said. “But, we have not been able to organize regional and national level seminars for collecting inputs.”
Similarly, the board has not been able to fill the posts of director and research officer at the UGC. “We have been allocating grants to various universities without having them endorsed by the board,” he said.
The UGC board has remained without leadership for almost a year after its former chairman and member secretary retired. The government had appointed the new chairman and member secretary at the UGC on May 17.
New VCs still outside their offices
Though almost a month has elapsed after former Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal appointed VCs at Tribhuvan University, Mahendra Sanskrit University, Pokhara University, Purbanchal University, Far Western University, Mid West University and Agriculture and Forest University, none of the newly-appointed VCs have been able to assume their offices.
“The day after I was appointed the VC of the Far Western University, I left Tribhuvan University where I worked for years. I do not have office or vehicle since. Nor am I going to receive my salary before this Dashain,” Prof Jaya Raj Awasthi said.
Democratic Professors’ Association (DPA) close to Nepali Congress and National Professors’ Association (NPA) close to UCPN (Maoist) had padlocked seven universities on August 10 -- a day after Khanal appointed the VCs there. The DPA and the NPA have been demanding that all the appointments made by Khanal be cancelled.
“Khanal appointed the VCs without consulting us,” DPA Chairman Guna Nidhi Neupane said.
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