How does the Pokhara University scholarship work for an engineering student?

Pokhara University reserves 10 per cent of the approved seats in its affiliated colleges and 20 per cent in its constituent schools for scholarship students, and fills them through one university-wide selection examination rather than through the colleges. In the 2083 cycle it awarded 474 engineering-side scholarships across nine programmes and sixteen colleges, and the first round of choices went only to candidates who studied classes 6 to 10 in a government or community school.

Pokhara University runs the largest published scholarship scheme of any engineering route in Nepal, and it works differently from anything in the IOE system. The university reserves 10 per cent of the approved seats in every affiliated college and 20 per cent in its own constituent schools, and it fills them itself through one selection examination held for the whole university, not through the colleges. Awards are decided on the exam, on the candidate’s credentials and economic background, and on an interview. In the 2083 cycle the engineering-side awarded lists published on 27 August 2026 carried 474 names across nine programme files and sixteen colleges. The single most consequential rule is the one about schooling: the first round of college and programme choices was open only to candidates classified “School Type – Public”, meaning they studied and passed classes 6 to 10 in a government or community school. Everyone else waits for a later round.

The 2083 cycle, date by date

Scroll the table sideways for Stage.

Two rules govern the choice form. A candidate may name at most three academic programmes within one faculty, and at most six institutions for one programme. Anyone in the Pass List who had not uploaded a class 12 marksheet or transcript and a character certificate by the deadline was not carried into the Merit List at all, which is the quiet way people fall out of this process.

How many sat it, and how many got through

The Faculty of Science and Technology splits its scholarship examination into two groups, Ka and Kha; the notices publishing the lists do not say on those pages which programmes fall in which group. Group Ka is much the larger. The pass lists of 30 July 2026 carried 1,904 names in group Ka and 251 in group Kha, 2,155 in total. The merit lists of 17 August carried 1,855 names once the two school types are added together — group Ka 932 Public and 699 Others, group Kha 149 Public and 75 Others. The 474 awards on 27 August therefore went to about a quarter of the merit list.

The 474 engineering awards, by programme

The same 474 rows carry a quota column, and it is the fullest published picture of who a Nepali engineering scholarship actually reaches. Using the labels the documents themselves print: Open 275, Ethnic 52, Madhesi 51, Scheduled 37, Remote 36, Local 9, Staff or teacher offspring 7, Disabled 4, and Conflict Victim 3. Counted a third way, by the college each awarded student chose, the same 474 spread across sixteen institutions, with the university’s own School of Engineering taking 73, Nepal College of Information Technology 58, Madan Bhandari Memorial Academy 55 and Nepal Engineering College 49. All three tallies reconcile to 474, which is the check that says the counts above were not estimated.

Where the 2083 cycle stands

The Awarded List notice of 27 August set award-letter distribution for 31 August to 3 September 2026, with enrolment at the chosen college by 5:00 pm on 7 September. On 28 August the university published a further notice postponing the distribution of award letters, citing the difficult circumstances created by the natural disaster, until a further notice is published. That further notice had not appeared on the scholarship portal when it was read on 2 September 2026, and the postponement notice does not say anything about the 7 September enrolment date. Anyone holding an award should be reading the portal itself rather than any secondary account of it, including this one.

The 10 and 20 per cent reservation is from the School of Engineering’s Apply Online page and the scholarship portal’s own description. Dates are from the pass-list, merit-list, awarded-list and postponement notices, all scanned images read off the rendered page rather than an extraction; their Bikram Sambat dates were converted with the repository’s own converter and two were cross-checked against the publication date printed beside them on the portal. The 474, its programme split, its quota split and its college split are counts of the rows in the nine engineering-side awarded PDFs, and the three splits reconcile to the same total.

Last reviewed 2 September 2026 by Ram Raj Thapa, Admissions Officer, Imperial College of Engineering. Every figure on this page is cited to the document it came from.

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Related answers

• What does a BE cost at Pokhara University, and how many seats are there?

  Pokhara University’s School of Engineering publishes a total four-year fee per programme: Rs 6,23,000 for Civil and for Civil and Rural, Rs 5,87,200 for Electrical and Electronics, Computer, Software, Information Technology and Mechanical. Beside each it prints an intake — 115 for Civil, 39 for each of the other five. A refundable security deposit of Rs 20,000 applies to every programme.

• Which colleges run Pokhara University engineering degrees?

  The Nepal Engineering Council registers sixteen: the university’s own School of Engineering at Pokhara and fifteen private colleges, across eleven districts from Dhangadhi to Urlabari. Pokhara University’s own Faculty of Science and Technology publishes seventeen, and the two lists do not agree with each other on three separate points.

• How do engineering scholarships in Nepal actually work?

  Three different things are called a scholarship: a subsidised Regular seat, rank-banded pricing at private colleges, and discretionary support assessed case by case.

• Do private TU-affiliated engineering colleges have to offer subsidised seats?

  Yes. IOE requires each affiliated college to admit 10% of its total intake at a fee equivalent to IOE's Regular rate, without raising its admission target. Across the ten colleges that is roughly 230 seats a year.