Colleges and affiliation
Who is affiliated to what, and what affiliation actually means.
What does “TU affiliated” actually mean?
“TU affiliated” has a precise meaning worth understanding before you compare colleges: Tribhuvan University awards the degree and sets the curriculum, the examinations and the academic calendar, while the college supplies the teaching. The syllabus, the papers and the degree are therefore identical everywhere in the system. What differs between colleges is teaching, laboratories, cost and location — and those are the only questions worth asking. IOE’s own 2083 booklet lists five constituent campuses — Pulchowk in Lalitpur, Thapathali in Kathmandu, Purwanchal in Dharan, Paschimanchal in Pokhara, and Chitwan Engineering Campus at Rampur — alongside ten affiliated private colleges, seven of them in Lalitpur, two in Bhaktapur and one in Kathmandu. One naming trap catches people: Janakpur Engineering College and Imperial College of Engineering are the same institution, renamed in 2082 BS, and it is in Tathali, Bhaktapur — not in Janakpur.
6 answers in this section. Every figure is cited to the official document it came from, with the date it was read. Where a document has been superseded, the newer one governs and the page says which.
Affiliation is the thing most comparison articles get wrong, usually by implying that some TU-affiliated colleges award a better degree than others. They do not. The university sets the curriculum, runs the examinations and awards the degree; the college supplies the teaching and the building. Once that is clear, the list of real differences between two colleges is short and checkable, which is what this section is for.
Which answer you need
- If you want to know what affiliation actually changesWhat does "TU affiliated" actually mean for my engineering degree?
- If you are building a shortlist of private collegesWhich private engineering colleges are affiliated to Tribhuvan University?
- If you want the constituent campuses rather than private collegesWhich are the IOE constituent campuses?
- If A portal or listing is showing you a name you do not recogniseWhy does Janakpur Engineering College appear where Imperial College of Engineering should be?
- If you are trying to find a campus that has movedWhere is Janakpur Engineering College located?
One naming trap catches people every year and it is worth stating plainly: Janakpur Engineering College and Imperial College of Engineering are the same institution, renamed in 2082 BS, and it is in Tathali, Bhaktapur — not in Janakpur, and no longer at the older Lalitpur address that some records still show. If a directory, a mapping service or an admission portal shows you the former name, it is not a different college and it is not an error on your side.
Last reviewed by Ram Raj Thapa, Admissions Officer, Imperial College of Engineering. Every figure on this page is cited to the document it came from.