Suresh Raj Sharma

Suresh Raj Sharma was born on 22 July 1940 in Khurkot VDC, Sindhuli District, Nepal, to lawyer Bishnu Prasad Upadhyaya and Savitri Devi Dhungel. His mother's family included writers Kul Chandra Koirala and Divya Dev Koirala. With no village school in his earliest years, he first studied at home with a Sanskrit teacher, then briefly in Sonbarsa, India, before completing the School Leaving Certificate at Saraswati High School, Janakpur, in 1956. An elder brother who travelled with him to Janakpur died young of malaria, a loss Sharma later recalled in autobiographical writing.

Sharma completed Intermediate in Science in 1960 and a BSc at Tri-Chandra College in 1962, then earned an MSc in chemistry at Karnatak University under a Colombo Plan scholarship in 1964. After a decade teaching at Tribhuvan University campuses he took a British Council place at the Polytechnic of the South Bank (now London South Bank University) and received his PhD in chemistry in 1977 for work on pharmacologically active principles in plant extracts suited to Nepalese horticulture.

From 1964 to the mid-1970s Sharma taught chemistry at Tri-Chandra and related colleges and helped found Tribhuvan University's MSc chemistry programme. After his doctorate he joined the National Education Committee, serving for roughly a dozen years as member secretary during King Birendra's drive to modernise schooling, and chaired Budhanilkantha School for about eight years. In 1989 he became first executive director of CTEVT. In 1991 he helped charter Kathmandu University and served as founding vice chancellor until 2012, launching professional programmes in management, engineering, pharmacy, environment, biotechnology and more. He later remained a lifelong Board of Trustees member.

Sharma was married to Urmila Dhungel, who died in 2024. They raised four children: Kopila Acharya, Shrija Pokharel, Kanchan Dhungel and Sijan Dawadi. He came from a large sibling group that included brothers Madan Raj Sharma, Dinesh Dhungel, Surya Dhungel, Jalan Raj Sharma, Kalyan Dhungel, Gopal Prasad Dhungel, Mohan Dhungel, Mukunda Prasad Upadhaya and Umesh Sharma, and sisters Sobha Pokharel, Durga Pokharel, Manju Pokharel and Medha Subedi. In later years he wrote reflective essays on education and pursued a technical school project in Sindhuli.

Sharma argued that Nepal needed independent universities that were neither purely government nor purely private, and that quality should come before enrolment growth. In a 2006 interview he insisted that Kathmandu University must be protected from politicisation and that faculty unions and promotions had to follow the university's own rules. He repeatedly said technical and vocational education was essential for students who would not enter elite academic tracks, and that ICT and professional courses were how Nepal could catch up with global labour markets.

CTEVT and Kathmandu University are the clearest monuments to Sharma's career. Colleagues Bhadra Man Tuladhar and Sita Ram Adhikari credited him with modernising Nepali higher education and with unusual administrative stamina. KU became known for timely calendars, professional degrees and lower political interference than older campuses. His late-career Pioneer ICT Award recognised early computer engineering education at KU. Education writers have called him one of the architects of Nepal's post-1990 university landscape.

In 2014 the Norwegian University of Science and Technology awarded Sharma an honorary doctorate. In December 2024 he received Nepal's Pioneer ICT Award for contributions to ICT and computer engineering education. He also held national roles including Member Secretary of the National Education Committee, member of the National Commission for UNESCO, and national delegate to the SAARC technical committee on science and technology.

Sharma published books, research papers, articles and secondary-school curriculum materials. He gave frequent interviews to Nepali education media, including Colleges Nepal and Nepali Times, and late in life wrote autobiographical pieces such as 'Suresh Raj Sharma: The modernizer of Nepal's education' for The Annapurna Express (2022). Documentaries and convocation speeches featuring him circulate on YouTube, and NTNU filmed his 2014 honorary-doctorate ceremony.

Critics sometimes cast KU's public-private model as a promotion of private higher education. Faculty disputes over union rights and promotions surfaced during his vice chancellorship; Sharma answered that the university's bylaws barred unions and that quality standards could not be bargained away. He also faced the wider Nepali debate over political interference in campuses, which he consistently opposed.

Sharma died on the evening of 23 September 2026 while receiving treatment at HAMS Hospital in Kathmandu, aged 86. Kathmandu University vice chancellor Bibek Baral confirmed the death. Nepali Congress leader Gagan Thapa and other public figures posted tributes recalling his role in founding KU and advancing technical education. No official cause of death had been released when early obituaries were written.