Nahid alerts VCs against campus unrest

Dhaka, Sep 12  Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Wednesday alerted Vice Chancellors of all public universities against repeated breakout of campus unrest.

The minister's suggestion is culmination of a series of unrests that of late rocked major public universities including the Dhaka University, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Jahangirnagar University and the Rajshahi University.
The VCs were discussing current situation of their universities and development activities with the minister at a meeting at the Secretariat.
The latest unrest was reported from the RU on Tuesday when 10 Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal activists were injured in a clash with the ruling party's students' wing Bangladesh Chhatra League. The day before Tuesday, some BCL activists had beaten up three JCD activists at the DU.
Protests are also taking place at the JU and the Jessore University of Science and Technology over different issues, while academic activity at the BUET is expected to resume on Aug 15 after a deadlock of two months following a row over allegations of corruption against its VC and the Pro-VC.
"The public university VCs were alerted so that such incidents do not take place again," Nahid told journalists after the meeting.
"The VCs will be fast in resolving the problems threatening the academic atmosphere (at the universities). We will also keep an eye," he added.

Nahid claimed violence among students' organisations is just the 'continuance of a tradition', and his government was trying to grow beyond that.

He claimed no public university was suffering from any major crisis since those at the BUET and the JU had been settled.

A VC on condition of anonymity said some of their colleagues complained about fundamentalist forces gaining strength on their campuses, taking advantage of intra-party feud of the BCL.

University Grants Commission Chairman AK Azad Chowdhury, Education Secretary Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury and 32 VCs of the 34 public universities attended the meeting.

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