Book ‘No VAT on edu’ published

Staff Reporter :

A long awaited book titled “Bangladesh’s Student Revolution: From No VAT on Education to the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement” has been published, covering six national movements led by students and teachers in Bangladesh.

The book has been brought out by Bright Future Publication, 38/2 Bangla Bazar. Printed on 708 pages of art paper, the book is priced at Tk 2,000.

Written and edited by Professor Robayet Ferdous of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University and No VAT on Education spokesperson (chief coordinator) Faruk Ahmad Arif, the book features six landmark movements in the nation’s history.

Among these are: The 2015 No VAT on Education protests by students of private universities, medical, and engineering colleges against the imposition of VAT on tuition fees,
The 2018 Quota Reform Movement led by the Bangladesh General Students’ Rights Protection Council demanding reform of government job quotas,
The Road Safety Movement in August 2018, sparked by the death of two students in a road accident,
The 2024 Anti-Discrimination Student Movement demanding the abolition of quotas.
In addition, it documents two teachers’ movements: one in 2015 for an independent pay scale, and another in 2024 demanding the cancellation of the Universal Pension Commitment Scheme.

These six movements stand as some of the most recently victorious struggles in the nation’s history. They drew immense attention both nationally and internationally, while highlighting new dimensions in Bangladesh’s political, social, cultural, and economic life.
The book incorporates a wide range of material — news reports, columns, interviews, memoirs, and conversations with ministers and advisers of the time. It paints a broad canvas of student and teacher movements alongside the involvement of ordinary citizens.
On the publication, the book’s chief editor Professor Dr. Robayet Ferdous said:
“In our country, there have been many movements — from the anti-British struggle, the 1947 Partition, the 1952 Language Movement, the 1969 mass uprising, the Liberation War of 1971, to the 1990 people’s uprising. Much of this history has been lost due to not being documented in time.”