Merit over muscle

The decision of 16 student unions to advocate for meritocracy comes as a breath of fresh air.

For once, student unions across the political spectrum have raised the right issue at the right time. Such a show of solidarity is rare among these unions that more often tend to blindly carry the agendas of their mother parties and individual leaders, and to fight among themselves. But on August 1, student unions affiliated to 16 political parties—both ruling and opposition—issued a joint statement calling for merit-based appointments of all school teachers through open competition. The student wings of the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML, the two main ruling parties, broke with their mother parties that want large chunks of these vacancies filled through internal quotas rather than open competition. The School Education Bill the government had tabled in parliament had proposed that up to half the teacher vacancies be filled through internal competition. A House subcommittee later agreed to set aside 75 percent seats for open competition. Later, that number was again pulled down to 60 percent, partly to please politically-affiliated teachers.