Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Year : 2, Issue: 35
by Anisuzzaman Muhammad
We are concerned about the way mobs of students are forcing teachers of various public and private educational institutions, at both tertiary and pre-tertiary levels, to resign. This daily has been able to confirm at least 150 forced resignations across the country since August 5, but said that the actual number could be much higher.
These incidents, along with the voluntary quitting of several hundred teachers following students’ demands, have created an unprecedented situation. This trend is deteriorating trust in teacher-student relations which forms the basis of our current institution-based educational system. While it is understandable that politicisation of teachers and our educational institutions has given rise to this breach of trust as well as frustration among students.
While the interim government has recently appointed a new VC for Dhaka University, other public universities are still without academic heads. The forced removal of college-school principals and subject teachers, many of them from BCS education cadre, will only exacerbate the situation.
We must all understand that any desired reform in the education sector will not happen overnight.
Therefore, we cannot let impatience and pent-up frustration worsen the crisis by creating an artificial teacher vacuum or further compromising teachers’ recruitment processes. We hope that students will practice restraint and allow the time and space needed for the implementation of their demands in an orderly fashion.
