Nepal’s new Prime Minister and Rastriya Swatantra Party leader Balendra (Balen) Shah has announced major changes to the country’s education system during his first cabinet meeting. The government has introduced a 100-point reform program, with a large portion focused on education. As part of this initiative, all politically affiliated student organizations in schools and universities have been banned, and campuses have been instructed to remove them within a set timeframe. In their place, non-political student councils will be formed within 90 days to represent students’ genuine interests.

According to official documents, the government also aims to depoliticize the administration by prohibiting civil servants and teachers from joining political parties and dissolving party-based trade unions. To reduce exam pressure, all traditional internal exams up to grade five have been abolished, replaced by alternative and psychological assessment methods. Schools with foreign names have been ordered to adopt Nepali names by the end of the year to promote national identity.

The reforms also include removing the citizenship certificate requirement for undergraduate admissions and decentralizing teachers’ pension and record management to provincial education ministries from the next fiscal year.