Nepal’s higher education sector is currently facing a crisis as over 500 campuses across the country face the threat of closing down due to a dramatic decline in student enrollment. According to a new report from the University Grants Commission (UGC), hundreds of campuses are struggling because they simply don't have enough students.
Despite having 15 universities serving approximately 700,000 students, the distribution is uneven. Data shows that nearly 88% of all students are enrolled solely at Tribhuvan University (TU), leaving the remaining institutions struggling to survive. A recent report by the University Grants Commission (UGC) highlights a grim reality in the higher education sector: out of 1,432 campuses, 505 currently have fewer than 100 students, pushing 19 constituent campuses, 188 community campuses, and 308 private colleges to the brink of collapse.
The UGC attributes this sharp decline to a combination of a massive wave of students migrating abroad for better prospects and a stagnant domestic job market that fails to attract graduates. Prof. Dr Gyan Bahadur Thapa, Secretary of the UGC, warned that creating "clones" of existing universities will not help. "TU is already overburdened. Adding more of the same won't attract students. He stresses that the focus should shift toward better supervision and regulation of existing institutions.
The situation was worsened by universities granting affiliations haphazardly without considering actual demand over the years. While existing colleges are starving for students, the government is proceeding with the establishment of three new universities. Furthermore, despite an annual investment of NPR 19 billion, the UGC notes that research-based education remains nearly non-existent.
In response, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology has directed for universities to align their academic production with national needs and implement a merger policy for institutions that are struggling with low enrollment and are located in close proximity to one another.
Ministry spokesperson Shiva Kumar Sapkota confirmed that the government's priority is now "consolidation over expansion." The new policy mandates that colleges within close physical proximity with low enrollment must merge their resources and faculty. "We are no longer in a position to sustain non-viable institutions," Sapkota stated. "We have requested universities to analyze the relevance and necessity of their colleges. Based on this analysis, we will move toward suspending programs and implementing mandatory closures or mergers.”
