Kathmandu, 8th Baisakh 2082 (April 21, 2025): Education, Science, and Technology Minister Bidya Bhattarai resigned on Monday afternoon after Prime Minister failed to support her amid the ongoing teachers’ protest in Kathmandu for the past 20 days and the clause-by-clause discussions on the School Education Bill in the parliamentary committee.
The Prime Minister had been bypassing Minister Bhattarai during discussions and negotiations aimed at resolving the teachers’ issues and ending the protest. Minister Bhattarai was also absent from the meeting between the teachers’ protest representatives and the Prime Minister held at Baluwatar on Friday evening.
The discord between the Education Minister and the Prime Minister had already begun in previous incidents. Contentious clauses of the School Education Bill have remained unresolved in the Parliament’s Education and Health Committee. Her resignation is expected to further complicate the process.
Senior officials at the Ministry of Education had been informally sharing concerns about the lack of coordination between the Prime Minister and the Education Minister since the beginning.
On Chaitra 15 (March 28, 2025), Tribhuvan University Vice Chancellor Keshar Jung Baral submitted his resignation. Education Minister Bhattarai believed that the resignation should be withdrawn, but the Prime Minister held a different view. Two weeks later, the Prime Minister accepted Baral’s resignation. However, even after accepting it, the Prime Minister—who also serves as the Chancellor of the university—did not immediately appoint an acting Vice Chancellor. It took an additional five days to assign the role.
Education Minister Bhattarai also disagreed with the appointment of the Vice Chancellor at Kathmandu University. She was not even included in the recommendation committee for the appointment. A report related to the misappropriation of land at Tribhuvan University was submitted to Prime Minister Oli, but he neither made it public nor initiated further investigation based on the report. Minister Bhattarai had also expressed dissatisfaction regarding this matter.
Since her appointment, Bhattarai had consistently accused Prime Minister Oli of being uncooperative and, more recently, of interfering in the autonomy of universities. The situation became so tense that she publicly appealed to the Home Minister, requesting security for university officials.
The resignation of Baral, citing lack of support and interference from Prime Minister and Chancellor Oli, further strained the relationship between the Education Minister and the Prime Minister, as subsequent developments continued to widen the rift between them.
