Image of public universities has to be saved

LARGE-SCALE recruitment of teachers and employees violating rules over the last one decade is at the center of the recent unrest at Rajshahi University, news reports in an English daily said. It recruited 368 teachers and staff against 208 posts advertised in the 2012-13 academic year and none of them had authorization of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The new recruitments included 56 teachers and 288 staffs. The UGC did not grant Tk 5.5 crore required for salaries and allowances of the 344 new recruits last year. The controversial recruitment at RU totalled 1,023 including 600 teachers, appointed between February 2009 and February 2013 ignoring the UGC objections. As a result, RU has a fund deficit of Tk 50 crore. The RU authorities have therefore decided to increase various fees and opened more evening courses to earn more money to pay for the newly recruited teachers and staffs as most of them are ruling party cadres and loyalists. But the general students were opposed to a rise in fees and new evening courses at the private level for other reasons. They fear that the first one is poised to hit them hard financially and the second threatens to disrupt their regular classes. So students started agitations on the campus from early February. The crisis slowly burst into a bloody confrontation in which the varsity authorities finally used the armed cadre of Bangladesh Chhatra League and police to chase them out of the campus.As we see, similar unauthorized recruitments, mainly of ruling party cadres and loyalists have also taken place in three other public universities such as that of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar and Chittagong. But the situation at RU seems to be the worst. The report said under the new arrangement the RU opened seven evening courses last month, besides two more running courses from 2010. Teachers share 75 percent of income from these courses while the remaining 25 percent accrues to the varsity fund. Under the arrangement, a teacher gets Tk 1500 to 2,000 per lecture in the evening courses and receives the payment instantly. The moves look like using the public university facilities in the evening courses as a private university against payment of 25 percent income and selling university certificates to irregular students. General students held the view that RU teachers now take their salary from the university as a regular privilege and often keep absent from the regular classes to take rest for the evening shift. Their priority goes towards earning cash income. Moreover, they are opposed towards using the public university facilities for private coaching which is not only illegal but also immoral and a direct violation of university discipline.We equally share the students concerns. As we see, the teachers are after increasing their financial benefits in both ways-by raising the tuition fees and also by giving private evening courses without substantially contributing to the university funds to reduce its deficit. The most agonizing thing is that public varsity authorities like the RU is breaking the backbone of the universities by misusing their power and position and also university property. Their defiance of the UGC is more disturbing. It is an anarchy. We urge the university authorities and public universities to show their love for education and restore discipline in public universities. It is the politicization that is at the root of abuses with the help of partisan political elements.