Key Points

Bhattarai submitted her resignation letter to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Monday afternoon, according to sources from the Prime Minister's Office.

"In the resignation letter, the minister has primarily stated health to be the reason behind this step. It is well known that she had been facing pressure after continued protests by the teachers in Kathmandu," a senior official from the Prime Minister's Office told ANI.

Bhattarai's resignation comes at a time when community and government school teachers from across the country have been protesting in Kathmandu for the past 20 days. The protest is centred around demands related to the School Education Act and other concerns.

Minister Bhattarai's resignation follows growing dissatisfaction among teachers and the government's perceived unwillingness to address their demands.

Earlier, on 15th April, Bhattarai had held discussions with Speaker Devraj Ghimire and Chhabilal Bishwakarma, the coordinator of the parliamentary subcommittee on school education.

Bhattarai had also discussed the issue with Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, as many of the teachers' demands are linked to financial matters.

Along with, she also had raised the issue with the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to address the issue of teachers as it has been hampering new academic session which should have been started as of now. But Oli in the meeting showed little flexibility despite multiple meetings with the teachers over the week.

"The Minister had requested the government to create an environment to move forward with the education bill during the first week of the upcoming parliamentary session. But there was a cold response from all possible fronts," a senior official from the Education Ministry confirmed to ANI.

House Speaker Ghimire, in the recent week, publicly stated that the education bill cannot be endorsed within the upcoming house session, which has further increased pressure on the education minister.

On 18 April, a delegation of teachers held a meeting with Prime Minister Oli, where he insisted that teachers return to schools instead of addressing their demands.

The National Teachers Federation (NTF), an elected body of the country's school teachers, has been demanding the enactment of the School Education Bill, which is now being held up in the parliamentary committee for deliberation.

The discussion which has been held in the subpanel has received mutually conflicting suggestions on several issues, including teacher management. As the Constitution of Nepal 2072 lists school education as the absolute authority of the local government, local units want school teachers to fall under their jurisdiction.

However, teachers don't want to stay under local authorities, claiming there are high chances that the local governments will treat them based on the political leanings of the local governments. On different occasions, the federal government has reached an agreement with the teachers to keep them under the federal government.

Enactment of the Act is a must to implement the Constitution of Nepal, which can delegate most of the authority to manage the education sector at the local and provincial levels. However, almost a decade after the constitution came into force, the country is yet to get the Act.

Right after the government introduced the bill in the federal parliament in September 2023, the federation staged a Kathmandu-centric agitation objecting to different provisions in the bill.

Thousands of teachers staged protests in Kathmandu, disrupting life in the capital city and forcing the government into a dialogue. They withdrew the protest after sealing a six-point deal with the government, which promised to address their demands by revising the bill.

Before descending to Kathmandu for agitation about one and a half years since the agreement, the teachers had held staged protests at local and provincial levels while also continuing to lobby at the political and bureaucratic levels.

- ANI