Staff Reporter :
A group of students, under the banner of the Technical Student Movement, blocked the road at the Satrasta intersection in Dhaka’s Tejgaon industrial area on Monday, demanding the fulfilment of their six-point agenda.
The blockade has caused severe traffic disruptions, halting movement between Farmgate and Shahbagh via Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, leading to a standstill in the area since midday and causing immense suffering for the people of the capital.
Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Tejgaon Industrial Area Police Station, Gazi Shamimur Rahman, stated that the students began the blockade around 12:00 pm.
“Vehicular movement on both sides of the road has been suspended because of the blockade. We are trying to reason with the students in an attempt to clear the road,” the officer added.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of the Traffic Department at Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) in Tejgaon, Tania Sultana, addressed the media, saying, “We were unable to allow vehicles on the Bijoy Sarani flyover due to the demonstration by polytechnic students, causing significant traffic congestion in the surrounding areas.”
The polytechnic students’ six-point demand includes the immediate removal of all craft instructors appointed in 2021 through what they described as a “questionable recruitment process” by the Directorate of Technical Education.
They are also calling for these instructors to be removed from all institutes under the directorate’s control.
The students are demanding that the diploma engineering course be set at a full four years, with each semester lasting six months.
Furthermore, they insist that only diploma engineers should be eligible to apply for the position of Deputy Assistant Engineer (10th grade), and that these and equivalent positions must be reserved solely for diploma engineers.
In addition, they called for a complete reform of the Board of Technical Education, with the stipulation that no staff outside the technical education sector be involved in managing technical institutions.
The group highlighted the current teacher shortage, calling for an overhaul of the recruitment rules and the immediate appointment of qualified technical staff to all vacant positions.
Their final demand pertains to higher education, urging the government to ensure that 100 per cent of the seats in the four proposed engineering colleges be reserved exclusively for diploma engineering students.