The offices of Kathmandu University have been padlocked by the All Nepal National Free Students Union, a student union affiliated to the CPN-UML. They have padlocked the offices for an indeterminate period because of the ongoing protest regarding the distribution of scholarships
ANNFSU have professed that the KU officials have been real bias towards distributing the scholarships. They have shown an act of favouritism by selecting their favourite or known candidate for the scholarships. Many deserving and hard working candidates who work hard have been neglected or refused due to such prejudice act, thus leading the protest. They have demanded the authorities to make the criteria used while selecting the scholarship recipients public. Eight students from each department of the university receives about 25-50% scholarship from the university each year.
Sanjay Lama, joint in-charge of ANNFSU´s KU unit stated that many students were dissatisfied with the results. They said that the students felt like only the favourite candidates who were undeserving got the scholarship whereas many students, who really worked hard didn’t get their rightful prize. He further claimed that the student from all the 13 departments have shown their support with the ongoing protest.
Since Friday the administrative works of the university have remained halted. The union have said that this will further escalate the ongoing protest on Sunday till their demands are fulfilled. Furthermore, the union has demanded to re-set the election of the Student Council.
Lama said that the university might have promised to hold the election by mid July, but they seem unwilling to hold the election. The teachers have also raised their voice and they have demanded the university to raise their salary.
Chairman of the Nepal Professors´ Union, KU chapter, Professor Bibhuti Ranjan Jha said,”It’s been really long since they have ignored our voice and now it’s our time that our voice must be heard. They have always paid us low salary with prejudice act and now enough is enough and that’s why we held this peaceful protest.”
The teachers union has also demanded that the university´s decision to appoint Mohan Bikram Gyanwali as the Dean of Department of Natural Science (Chemistry) be scrapped. Jha said that there are many teachers who are really deserving and who really works hard; but instead of having our hard work come to fruition, what they do is they bring a teacher from TU and this has really put a stop in our career development.”
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