Swallowed By the Politics

-By Janak Timilsina

No one will complain you even if you violate the college rules and regulations and even vandalise the college buildings or torch the official documents if you are the student of government-owned college of Nepal, neither you will deserve the rights to complain the college administration if you are not satisfied with the academic activities to be undertaken on the part of college. This will happen because you are the student of Nepal's government college where there is right to carry out political activities, and opportunity of lead your colleagues. Due to the lack of government initiation to reform the educational sector and 'vandalism culture', academic environment of such colleges is deteriorating day by day.

When Mahesh Niraj Silwal,17, passed out School Leaving Certificate examination, he held consultations with the people around him. Someone suggested him-"why don't you admit at RR College? There is full freedom. You can bunk the class everyday if you wish." Many other recommend him for joining private college. To reduce the financial burden of the parents, he joined one of the government colleges in Kathmandu. When encountered with this scribe, the adolescent said "I am really regretting why I joined this college, hardly there have been eight classes this month".

The environment of the collage has been shaping the attitude of the students. Some students are very curious on politics while other not. Sanju Wagle bachelor student of environment science at Tri Chandra College who was queuing to caste vote in the Free Student Union Elections said-"My organization had offered my the candidacy for treasurer but I said no thanks because of my own reason. I'm really interested in politics." Enthusiastic Sanju further added that politics was the essential phenomena for students and Free Student Union could be the only organisation to advocate the rights of the students. On the other hand, there are also the student like Junu Maharjan who studies in a private college and politics is the most irritating subject matter for her to discuss about. "I'm not interested in politics"-she said without any hesitation. Junu is the student of a private college and her college has only injected the contents of curriculum in her mind. She also said that she was not interested in watching news of the vote count as well; rather she wanted to watch music video or listen the music to kill the time. Quite opposite to Junu, Sanju joins dozens of political programmes a month.

Student unions affiliated with various political parties have been striving to strengthen their organizations in the public campuses. This month politics overwhelmed over 300 public campuses across the country due to the elections of Free Students Union. Many colleges turned to the battlefield as the students clashed over the elections. Student leaders in Nepal have been facing allegation of not taking initiation to maintain academic environment, identification of the students' problems and protection of physical infrastructures, rather they are battling for the existence. This practice has resulted in the decrease in the numbers of students in government colleges.

It is happiest moment of Chairperson of UML affiliated All Nepal National Free Student Union (ANNFSU) Ram Kumari Jhakri when her organization led in the Free Student Union elections. "Introducing new academic agendas in new context will be the priority of our organization"-Jhakri said. Denying the allegation of disrupting academic environment, she said that it was impossible to maintain quality education without politics. "Student, politics and education are interrelated subject matters, we can not deal on a single subject in isolation, we are confident that we will be able to establish new message in the colleges we won"-she further added.

General Secretary of Nepali Congress affiliated Nepal Student Union Manoj Mani Achary declared war against education mafia. "Our organization will make efforts for good future of the students over the violence" he said.
Manushi Yami Bhattarai, a candidate for FSU secretary at Tribhuvan University central campus said that her organisation was against an unequal educational system and she would do her best if elected. "Going in the election is the first experience for our organization, the student organisations have given worst impression of the student politics in the past, we will recover it" she claimed.