By Our Reporter
Tribhuvan University introduced paid study leave for a sensible reason: send teachers for higher studies, help them build expertise and bring that knowledge back to classrooms. Instead, hundreds of teachers and employees appear to have turned the facility into an exit route from the university. The financial cost alone is staggering. TU estimates that around Rs 2 billion should be recovered from those who violated study leave conditions, but it has managed to collect only Rs 167.1 million.
The scale of the problem points to something much deeper than individual misconduct. TU identified around 450 teachers and employees who misused study leave. About 250 went abroad and did not return, while another 200 returned without completing the studies for which they had taken leave. Only 77 people, around 17 percent of those identified, have repaid money so far.
This raises an obvious question: how could such misuse continue on this scale without the university acting earlier?
Study leave is not a gift. TU continues paying salaries and benefits because it expects something in return. Under university rules, a teacher taking three years of study leave must return and work for at least three years. Those taking more than three and up to five years must serve TU for at least five years. Anyone who fails to return must repay the salary and allowances received during the leave, with 10 percent interest.
The rules, then, are reasonably clear. Enforcement has been the problem. Some teachers reportedly travelled to countries such as the United States, Australia and Canada and simply stayed there. Some obtained permanent residency. Others resigned without settling what they owed TU. If the university continued paying salaries without closely tracking whether employees completed their studies, returned on schedule or fulfilled their service obligations, responsibility cannot rest entirely with those employees. Administrators who failed to enforce the agreements also have questions to answer.
TU’s response shows another familiar institutional weakness. A committee investigated the problem. Another committee was formed to implement its recommendations and recover the money. That committee has now completed its term and handed responsibility to the Registrar’s Office. Committees can establish facts, but they cannot become substitutes for routine administration.
A university with thousands of employees should have a digital system capable of tracking every person on study leave: where they are studying, when the leave expires, when they must report back and how long they must serve after returning. Officials should not have to discover years later that an employee never came back.
TU also needs to close the loophole involving those who returned without completing their studies. The recovery committee says uncertainty over how much such employees should repay slowed the process. That ambiguity should have been resolved long ago. If existing regulations are unclear, the university executive should amend them immediately.
The financial recovery now needs a firm deadline. TU has said those who remain out of contact will be given until Poush. After that, it should move beyond requests and notices. Outstanding amounts should be treated as recoverable public dues, using whatever legal mechanisms are available. Guarantors and contractual commitments should also be enforced where applicable.
But recovering Rs 2 billion is only half the job. TU must find out why its internal controls failed badly enough for the liability to grow this large. Responsibility should be fixed not only on employees who breached their agreements, but also on officials if negligence allowed payments to continue improperly.
The damage goes beyond money. When a teacher leaves and never returns, students lose an academic, departments face staffing gaps and the university loses the expertise it financed. Another teacher may then need to be recruited or existing staff must carry the additional workload.
Paid study leave remains worth preserving. Universities need academics with international exposure and advanced qualifications. Punishing everyone by restricting legitimate study opportunities would solve the wrong problem.
TU instead needs to make one principle unmistakable: public money comes with public responsibility. Anyone receiving paid study leave must complete the agreed obligations or repay what is owed. And the university itself must stop operating a system in which violations can remain unnoticed until the bill reaches billions of rupees.
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