STUDENTS of the Government Titumir College holding a blockade of Mohakhali in Dhaka on November 18 demanding an upgrade of the institution to a university inconvenienced city people for four hours and a half beginning half an hour before the noon. The tailback that the blockade created spilled to areas bordering Mohakhali, Tejgaon, Moghbazar, Rampura, Karwan Bazar, Farmgate, Uttara, Kuril and Banani, leaving stranded traffic on the road between Mohakhali and the Dhaka airport. The incident had also snapped train communication between the capital city and the rest of the country for the duration. Four trains headed towards Dhaka and another leaving Dhaka had been stranded until the students withdrew the blockade about 4:00pm. Several passengers are reported to have been injured when the students pelted the Upakul Express headed to the Kamalapur railway station from Noakhali with stones as the train was crossing Mohakhali. The students demanded that the affiliation of seven colleges to the University of Dhaka should be cancelled, the Titumir College should be separated from six other colleges, a commission should be set up on the upgrade of the college to a university and the authorities should work out a road map on the upgrade of the institution.
The administration of the seven colleges along with other colleges, earlier governed by public universities of respective regions, were put under the National University, an affiliating collegiate university, in 1992. The seven colleges in Dhaka were put back under the University of Dhaka in 2017. In a similar manner four colleges of Rajshahi were put back under the University of Rajshahi and five colleges in Chattogram were put back under the University of Chittagong in 2024. The colleges were put under the National University to unburden the public universities, which found it difficult to deal with the additional pressure of the colleges. The colleges were then put back under the public universities to accord them special status. As the public universities started struggling again, the students of the seven colleges of Dhaka rallied in October demanding that they all should be placed together under a public university that the authorities should set up. Meanwhile, the authorities had plans to set up a dedicated unit in the University of Dhaka to deal with the seven colleges. And, now Government Titumir College students want their institution to be upgraded to a university. But what all, the education managers and the students, appear to be forgetting is that the problem lies with the functioning of the National University that has failed to deal with the colleges.
A separate university for seven colleges, as was the demand earlier, or the upgrade of one college to a university, as is the demand now, may open the floodgates of problems and would only compound the matter. The government should, therefore, work out a holistic approach to the problem and deal with the issues. It should also improve the functioning of the National University.
