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The Triangle Conference initiated by The Annapurna Express, the sister publication of Annapurna Media Network, kicked off on Monday at Hyatt Place, Kathmandu.

‘The Triangle Conference: Let’s discuss the future of Nepal’ (November 25-27) is a platform initiated by The Annapurna Express to get these stakeholders talking and hasing out their differences so that they can work in mutually beneficial ways.

During the seven sessions spread over three days, politicians, bureaucrats, academics, private sector representatives, student leaders and other representatives from the three sectors will discuss the gaps in their communication, their future vision for Nepal, entrepreneurship, leadership, and policy issues. 

Chairman of AMN and today’s chief guest, Capt. Rameshor Thapa said, “Our media house wants to keep this debate going so that we can find solutions to outstanding problems.”

Annapurna Media Network (AMN), a leading media house in Nepal, has launched a two-year ‘Unity for Sustainability’ campaign which aims to collaborate with concerned stakeholders on climate change issues.

The campaign, which will come into force on 1 January 2022, was announced amid a special function in Kathmandu on November 24.

To fight climate change individual steps are not enough and all stakeholders need to jointly work and raise their voices. Right now, these stakeholders are not working in unison and there is a lack of coordination, and hence no concrete output. AMN hopes to change this state of affairs by bringing together climate stakeholders and fostering meaningful interactions between them.

Inaugurating the campaign, AMN Chairman Capt. Rameshwar Thapa said we are passing through a severe climate crisis so all stakeholders must be united and work in collaboration. “Annapurna Media Network will raise the issue of climate change in a vibrant and profound way. Our news, editorial, and other news items need to be refined in line with the crisis caused by climate change,” he said. 

Stating that we are passing through a phase of climate crisis, Chairman Thapa urged concerned stakeholders to join hands on climate change issues. This is our both professional and social responsibility and our campaign will enhance dialogue on climate change issues, he said.

Also read: The Triangle Conference: Righting the government-academia-business mismatch 

Sachan Thapa, Director, AMN, reiterated the group’s commitment to consistently take up the climate agenda, with the goal of bringing meaningful changes to Nepal’s climate policies. Not just that. AMN, he said, wants to articulate Nepal’s collective voice as the country cries out for climate justice and for compensation from the biggest polluters in the world. “Towards this goal, we are ready to partner with any interested party that wants to use our platforms to disseminate climate awareness and to help Nepal meet its climate-related goals, including the ones made at the recent COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.”

Biswas Baral, Editor-In-Chief of The Annapurna Express, said AMN’s latest commitment is to consistently champion the climate agenda in Nepal and help the country deal with what is an increasingly growing menace. And we believe it is the Nepali youth who have to take ownership of this agenda now. The Annapurna Express will help them do so, he said. Baral further said: “As a part of our focus on youth and climate change, we will be publishing exclusive features on a weekly basis. These will help the youth understand climate change, but also give them an understanding of how they can personally contribute to stopping the phenomena.”

Akhanda Bhandari, editor of Annapurna Post, Shambhu Kattel, Annapurna Post Digital news Chief, Tikaram Yatri, Chief Editor AP1 TV and, Shiromani Dawadi, Station Manager at Annapurna Radio presented their respective plans on how to cover the climate change issues in the outlets they lead. AMN's media outlets are working on different climate change themes. 

As the country witnesses more and more extreme weather events and our lives and livelihoods witness drastic changes, it is vital that our youths be made aware of climate change and its deleterious impact as early as possible. This means including climate change in school and college curriculum, and this is also something The Annapurna Express will push for.

Sanothimi, Bhaktapur is dotted with many governmental offices, mainly related to education and training. A particularly colorful three-storey building in the area belongs to the Council for Technical Education and Vocational Training (CTEVT), which falls under the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology. Oddly though, the colorful office seems impervious to outsiders.

The motto of this office is: ‘Skilling Nepal for People’s Prosperity’. The education minister is the chairperson of CTEVT while the vice-chair is appointed by the Cabinet. In other words, it’s pretty much filled with political appointees. According to the government of Nepal, “CTEVT is a national autonomous apex body for technical and vocational education and training committed to the production of technical and skillful human resources required for the nation.” This is exactly why we wanted to contact them.

We could not. There was no one to pick up the three different phone numbers listed on CTEVT website, during office hours, but all lines were busy, all the time. This is just an example of the kind of dysfunction and unresponsiveness that characterise our academic and vocational education establishments.

The number of ‘educated unemployed’ in Nepal is increasing by the day. Graduates are struggling to land good jobs while organizations, both public and private, fail to fill vacancies. Our academia appears incapable of producing qualified human resources.

Are our businesses and industries not investing enough in human resource development? Or is it the state’s failure to come up with the right policies, programs, and incentives? But there is no good answer on offer. The education ministry is largely out of reach. Just like at the CTEVT, all your attempts to contact ministry officials will be futile.  

Also read: The Triangle Conference: Let’s discuss the future of Nepal 

Yes, the government is unresponsive, says Shekhar Golchha, president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), but the private sector is doing its bit to improve things. For instance, the FNCCI is undertaking a research titled ‘Ilam’, which is now in its final phase. “We were researching the type of human resources the industry needs and the kind the academia is capable of providing,” he says after agreeing that there is indeed a lot of job-skill mismatch.

Lok Raj Baral, a political scientist, blames the political parties and politicians for the mess. “Both the universities and the private sector are badly politicized,” he says.

For Golchha, the solution to this crisis is not far-fetched. Only if the education ministry, CTEVT, and other concerned bodies took their research seriously, the private sector would get qualified and sufficient manpower, he says. And for Baral, politics is primary, so it should be purified in the first place.

With all these problems in the country, the youth either end up in no-prospect jobs or head abroad.

Even as the country faces all these problems, stakeholders are mum. In the absence of meaningful dialogue between them, the government, the academia and the private enterprises are each pursuing their own goals. But only when all these sectors align can the country develop, while even a little non-alignment can disrupt the entire system.

‘The Triangle Conference: Let’s discuss the future of Nepal’ (November 25-27) is a platform initiated by The Annapurna Express to get these stakeholders talking and hasing out their differences so that they can work in mutually beneficial ways.

During the seven sessions spread over three days, politicians, bureaucrats, academics, private sector representatives, student leaders and other representatives from the three sectors will discuss the gaps in their communication, their future vision for Nepal, entrepreneurship, leadership, and policy issues. 

“We lack the blueprint of planning”

Shyam Shrestha, former member of the High-Level National Education Commission

We lack proper nationwide planning on the quality and quantity of human resources we need in each sector. This is largely due to the inaction of the National Planning Commission (NPC) whose job it is to coordinate with all sectors and plan for them. 

When I was at the education commission, I found that our national needs and the manpower we produce are poles apart. We informed the government about this, but nobody cared. We lack a blueprint for proper planning.

We produce educated manpower of international standard, but due to mismanagement they end up going abroad. This is a substantial loss for us, both economically and psychologically.

We think we are more developed than Bhutan, but Bhutan is miles ahead in terms of planning for the human resources it needs. 

It has been 11 years since China promised the teachers and students of Sinjali Secondary School in Gorkha a well-equipped building. But students are still having to attend classes in temporary shelters as construction is yet to start. 

Chinese officials signed an agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Finance in 2010/11 stating that a well-equipped building would be constructed for the school in Sahid Lakhan Village Municipality-4. The old school building was ravaged by the 2015 earthquakes. 

During the prime ministership of Baburam Bhattarai, a visiting high-level Chinese delegation had agreed to build 10 residential school buildings in the Himalayan district. According to Sinjali secondary school principal Bal Narayn Shrestha, his school was eighth on the list. 

“In the meantime, the Chinese have visited the school twice, but to no avail,” says Shrestha. 

“All the schools ravaged by the quakes in the district have been rebuilt, but our school is still without a building,” says Shrestha, whose school’s 11-room building was damaged beyond repair. 

Also read: Two ‘new’ ethnic groups register themselves in census 

In the absence of a building, students from grades 1-8 are obliged to attend classes in temporary shelters. Students in grades nine and 10 have been forced to study in the old building marked with a red sticker indicating that the building is unsafe and can collapse any time. 

Shrestha says the school faces a lot of problems during inclement weather. While summer heat is unbearable, dew drops from the roof in winter. During the rainy season, the roof leaks and water seeps into the classroom. In addition, sound from one room can be clearly heard in another. 

He complains of being tired of frequenting the Chinese embassy, ​​the Department of Education and the Ministry of Finance. He says the school management committee, teachers and parents have repeatedly sought the promised support, but in vain.

Chief of the Education Development and Coordination Unit Khemraj Poudel in the district says that it is unclear if construction would start this year as well. “This is an agreement signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are also confused when construction will start,” he says. “It is a matter of diplomacy I guess.”

 Poudel says all other schools in the district, which wanted new buildings, now have them.