By Manjima Dhakal, Kathmandu, June 9: Three universities of the country, Pokhara University (PoU), Nepal Sanskrit University (NSU), and Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU) are without vice-chancellors (VC) for the last nine months. Due to lack of executives, plans and programmes of the universities remain uncertain.

Though the government appointed VCs at Mid-Western University, Far-Western University and Purbanchal University before the lockdown, employees and professors at PoU, NSU and AFU are astonished that the government left them without VCs for about a year.

Absence of executive heads at the universities has created problems in terms of legal decisions and has made them unable to approve plans of the concerned universities. Likewise, due to lack of executive heads at the varsities, posts of faculty heads, department heads, campus chiefs and the like are also vacant where the terms of existing officers ended.

In Pokhara University, after the term of former VC Chiranjibi Sharma expired in August last year, the government appointed Er Buddhiraj Joshi as Acting VC for three months. And Indra Prasad Tiwari, Dean of the varsity’s Humanities faculty, was appointed Acting VC after Joshi. Tiwari’s term also expired last month, leaving PoU without even an acting head.

Hemraj Pandey, president of the University Teachers’ Association, said the university had also failed to conduct the meeting of its executive council since the VC is the head of the council as per the university’s provisions.

According to Pandey, now the varsity doesn't have deans in different faculties, namely Science and Technology, Humanities, and Health.

Likewise, controller, executive director, international relation director, research development, and curriculum development heads also could not be appointed because the varsity could not hold its executive council meeting. The assembly, budget, and plans of the varsity, too, are halted due to lack of officials.

Pandey said now the varsity has been running online classes during the lockdown, but it failed to approve working procedure of online classes without the executive. The university was also unable to make any plans regarding postponement of the examinations of Bachelor level, he further said.

Just like Pokhara, Nepal Sanskrit University also lies in less-than-ideal situation, in absence of key officials for the last 10 months. The varsity even failed to pay the increased salary to its staff since the beginning of this fiscal year because of requisite officials.

Nabaraj Khatiwada, associate professor at the University, said, “Though the government had increased the salaries last fiscal year, they had not received the hiked pay yet.” The varsity has not paid even old-scale salaries to employees for the last three months.
Khatiwada accused the government of neglecting the operations of the universities, which is giving the wrong message to the people.

“NSU has not been able to work effectively for the last 10 years due to this neglect,” Khatiwada said, adding, “Education in the country is deteriorating day by day because of excessive politics in the education sector.”

In NSU, after the term of previous VC Kul Prasad Koirala ended, the government had twice appointed Ramesh Dhakal, rector, as acting VC. Now, Dhakal’s term has also expired.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture and Forestry University has also been left without its vice chancellor for the last nine months.

The AFU is running under Acting VC Prof Sharada Thapaliya, dean of Animal Science, Veterinary and Fisheries, after former VC IP Dhakal’s term expired.

Shankar Raj Barsila, assistant professor of Animal Nutrition, said the lack of executive had been creating legal hurdles in day-to-day operation. Barsila asked the government to clear the way for the varsity by appointing officials at the earliest.

In regard to appointment of varsity officials, different search committees led by Minister for Education, Science and Technology Giriraj Mani Pokharel and Usha Jha, a member of the National Planning Commission, had been formed to recommend names.

As per the received responses from various interested individuals, the committees submitted the list of eligible candidates to the Chancellor of the varsities and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli few months ago. However, the government has not taken any decision yet.

Divya Dawadi, information officer for the ministry, said she had no idea why the appointment process was taking time. Dawadi said,
"I am unaware about this because it is done from high political level."

Binay Kusiyait, a professor at Tribhuvan University, said lack of agreement in political partaking was delaying the appointment process. He also stressed that universities were never going to improve unless the culture of political interference came to an end.