Tribhuvan University has unveiled plans to expand digital services, make examinations fully digital and reposition itself as a research university in Nepal, presenting the proposals at a university assembly for the current fiscal year. The assembly was chaired by Vice-Chancellor and Education and Sports Minister Sasmit Pokharel. The programme also includes restructuring the university’s institutions and seeking new income from research and shared laboratories - changes that, if implemented, could reshape its administrative, academic and scholarly structure.
A digital shift in university services
The plan to make examinations fully digital is one of the clearest proposed changes to the university’s services. It places examination administration within a broader effort to expand digital services across Tribhuvan University. The programme sets out a direction for the institution, although the information presented does not specify a timetable, technical arrangements or the stages through which the proposed system would be introduced.
Moving examinations into a fully digital format would represent a substantial change in how the university handles this core academic function. The plan signals an ambition to use digital systems more extensively, rather than limit technology to selected services. For now, the proposal is part of the university’s policy and programme for the fiscal year; details about its implementation were not included in the information provided at the assembly.
The digital agenda sits alongside the university’s plans for institutional and academic reform. Together, the proposals indicate that the university is considering changes not only to individual services but also to the systems and structures that support its work. The assembly presented these as connected areas of change, while leaving the practical steps for carrying them out to be determined.
Research university ambition and new income
Tribhuvan University also intends to develop as a research university, a goal that would place research more centrally in its institutional direction. The plans include generating income from research and shared laboratories. This links the university’s scholarly ambitions with its efforts to improve its finances, setting out research activity and the use of laboratory facilities as potential sources of revenue.
The reference to shared laboratories suggests that the university plans to make laboratory resources part of this income strategy. However, the available details do not identify which laboratories might be involved, who would share them, or how access and revenue would be arranged. Nor do they state how much income the university expects to generate. The proposal therefore outlines a direction for financial and research development without specifying its operating model.
The research-university objective is also connected to the planned restructuring of the institution. The university expects major changes in its administrative, academic and scholarly structure if the proposals are implemented. That expectation underscores the scale of the stated ambition, but the assembly information does not set out a new organisational chart or name particular units that would be altered.
Implementation will determine the scale of change
Taken together, the measures cover several parts of the university’s work: service delivery, examinations, research, institutional organisation and income generation. The plans present digitalisation and research development as priorities while also identifying financial improvement as an objective. Their potential effect will depend on how the university turns these broad policy commitments into operational changes.
The proposals were presented as the university’s policies and programmes for the current fiscal year, but the information available does not provide specific implementation deadlines, budgets or performance targets. It also does not describe how the university will measure progress toward fully digital examinations or its research-university goal. Those details will be important in assessing how quickly the stated plans move from announcement to practice.
For now, Tribhuvan University has set out an agenda that combines digital expansion with research-led and structural reform. The assembly’s programme signals the possibility of significant changes to how the university administers its work, supports scholarship and approaches its finances. The university’s own expectation is that implementation could bring major administrative, academic and scholarly changes; the scale of those changes will become clearer as further details emerge. The plans were also reported by Ratopati.
