Mukti Rijal

Tribhuvan University seems to be caught up into a kind of tangle. A spectrum of strikes, halts and forced closures keep it prorogued for a considerable period of the academic years throwing its academic calendars into an abeyance. Accordingly, TU’s major administrative and academic functions have been put on hold during these months on account of the fact that the offices of the Vice Chancellor (VC), Registrar and Rector have been padlocked. VC, Rector and Registrar have been barred from carrying out their respective roles and responsibilities.

In fact, a huge crowd of the university teachers serving on part-time or contractual basis barged into the offices of VC, Rector and Registrar and padlocked and enforced their shutdown to stop their operation. The teachers had resorted to the university closure to press for the fulfillment of their demand in ensuring a fixed and confirmed tenured recruitment in different faculties of the university.
The teachers carrying out protests and strikes have their allegiance to different political parties but when it comes to staging strikes and holding protest rallies to meet their interests, they come together and challenge the overall academic ambience in the country.

Partisan intrigues
As stated above, the occurrences of strikes, protests, closures, shutdowns and vandalisms occur in this nation’s premier and recognised seat of learning for which the nation spends lavish pie of budget for its management. As a consequence, the university has witnessed a serious deterioration in its internal management and academic results because of the political meddling in all its affairs. In fact, why political meddling and overt and covert partisan intrigues and prejudices overwhelm the nation's premier academic institutions can be answered by taking cues from the fact that the senior academic positions in TU, including the vice chancellor, rector, registrar, deans, have been shared and divided among the major political parties to ensure that they should have their men installed in the key decision making portals. In case the agreed terms of the spoil sharing are not respected or allegedly breached like in the case mentioned above, acts of provocations and disturbances as strikes and protests are usually called at the expense of academic activities.

Sometime ago, the student unions operating as the frontal wing of the political force had padlocked the office of the dean throwing the entire activities of the academic calendar out of gear. It is a sheer paradox that there were no serious initiatives and attempts made to reach out to the striking students to call off the protests and open the shut out office of the dean. It looks like that the strikes and protests are presumably celebrated and enjoyed as the excuses for the non-performance and apathy by both the academic and administrative personnel. Even for the students who are inclined to indulge into acts of provocation and strikes such an apathy offer excuses to intensify their actions in mongering mischief and brewing troubles.

Oftentimes, the administrative staffs call the strikes halting both the academic and management functions of the university. Moreover, the elections for union of the TU non-academic core staff whose numerical strength is said to outnumber the teaching faculties too gets politically charged and the panels split along the political lines contest in a very competitive term. It indicates the intensity with which politicking is seeped into the rank and file of the university.

However, it is an irony to note that none of the strike and protest called by the students and academic faculties has been related with the demands and concerns towards reforming and improving the academic situations and environment. Needless to say, the physical and intellectual infrastructures and utilities in the central campus of the university itself are in a shambles.

Toilets, staircases, furniture and fixtures are in a state of disrepair and dilapidation. The stinking decrepit toilets and wash rooms show that the physical assets and facilities are woefully neglected without assigning a minimum of repair and maintenance. However, as noted above, students and teachers who often tend to go on strikes seldom bother to raise the issues of repair, maintenance and renovation of the university assets and facilities so that an improvement in academic environment could be attained. Moreover, the TU curriculum appertained to some of the subjects and disciplines is obsolete needing a revision and updating. Similarly, the quality of teaching staff is said to be poorer and inferior since senior teachers are hardly involved in the real classroom delivery. The teachers hired on contract basis are reported to be involved in dealing with the students in the classroom.

Many of the bright and reputed teachers who had opted for career in the university have either quit or gone on leave for greener pastures. The student unions and teachers have never framed these issues as the cause of calling for strikes and protests as their actions are seemingly dictated by political motivation. Taking cue from the sorry state of affairs in the university even the prime ministers and ministers as chancellor and pro vice-chancellors are reported to have made a derisive observation characterising TU as a factory where unemployable and non-productive human resource is harvested.

Critical reflection
However, when it comes to arresting and improving the deterioration of the TU and refraining from peddling political influence in its decision-making process, the responsible executive authorities of the government appear not very different from their predecessors. It is time a critical reflection was needed to bail the university out of the recoil of chaos and anomalies. The VC in his statement made available to the press paints a clear picture of the sad state of affairs in the university and makes an impassioned plea to restore the bruised image of the university. It is high time all stakeholders rose above the partisan interests and saved the nation's premier institution from going to ruins.

(The author is presently associated with Policy Research Institute (PRI) as a senior research fellow. rijalmukti@gmail.com)