Students' wasted years

As reported by Bangla daily Prothom Alo, there are several factors contributing to sessions jam -- admission procrastination, infrastructure limitations including sharing of facilities, dearth of teachers, teacher truancy, belated examinations followed by delayed publication of results and lack of coordination between different tiers of university administration. But the most significant factor of uncertainty is political turmoil spilling over to the campus resulting in unscheduled closures of universities. That the pressure to ease sessions jam impels certain departments to hurry through the examinations forcing the standards of education to fall is a glaring pointer to a deeper ailment.

Some departments do complete admission formalities early enough to minimise sessions jam. But the hard truth is that the students of private universities where courses are completed in due time have a clear edge over those of public universities like the DU. The former group of students can access job markets easily while the latter are delayed in taking up professional careers.

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The problems are not new, probable solutions have been talked about, but nothing concrete has come about for a turn-around. First of all, we suggest a collective political will by all parties to extricate national politics from student politics. In fact, the student leaders need to assert a definitive academic commitment over demands of politics. Secondly, there has to be coordination between the academic and administrative apparatuses of the university. The teachers must reduce the propensity to overstay on training and academic programmes abroad. And finally, the university administration must be kept free of any external political influence or pressure.