ANY assault on teachers is unacceptable as it happened when students of the National University attacked the vice-chancellor on May 21. And, further unacceptable is the reason that prompted the event as the students on the day assaulted the teacher, soon after he had got off his car at the administrative building on the university campus in Gazipur, demanding that the 2022 bachelor鈥檚 students should be granted the degree irrespective of whether they have failed or passed the examinations. Bachelor鈥檚 students of the pass course are reported to have been holding protests to demand the degree without examinations, an automatic award of the degree that is called 鈥榓uto pass鈥� in popular parlance. The university, an affiliating collegiate university founded in 1992 which now has about 3.4 million students in all, has disregarded the demand and held the examinations, in which 69 per cent of the students came out successful. The university administration later said that it had already given grace marks to the students, considering the most recent political unrest of 2024 and the prolonged Covid outbreak in 2020. Such a demand of the 2022 bachelor鈥檚 students is deplorable.
The origin of such a frame of mind of the students is said to have begun from the interim government鈥檚 conceding to the demand of students not to take the remaining tests of Higher Secondary Examinations, deferred in the changed reality in the middle of July 2024 when no test could be taken after July 16. But for the six of the tests that had been held before the July uprising, when the government decided to resume the examinations, a group of students broke into the secretariat on August 20 and demanded that the remaining tests should not be held, resulting in a prompt cancellation of the public examinations. The populist move was a bad decision on part of the government. Government leaders should have been able to impress on the students that what the students were doing would leave a bad mark on their academic life and it would adversely affect the education system. Several moves came about later with students holding protests, seeking the award of certificates without taking examinations, but the government was opposed to such moves. And, it was prudent of the government to have so done. The authorities should in no way give in to the atrocious demands of the National University students.
The authorities should, therefore, go for legal action against the students who assaulted the university vice-chancellor. And, the authorities, along with guardians of the students and teachers, should get down to work to stop students from making such ludicrous cases in future.
