No hasty decision in face of demand, education advisor on Titumir College
Education advisor Wahiduddin Mahmud on Sunday said the government will not take any hasty decision in the face of demonstrations issuing a deadline to meet the demand.
The advisor was talking to newspersons about the demonstrations of the students of Government Titumir College after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) today.
“It is not rational to demand the announcement of a university by setting a deadline,” he stated.
The students of Government Titumir College have been demonstrating blocking the road in the capital’s Mohakhali area on demand of announcing the college a university. This has created a huge suffering for the people as traffic movement towards Gulshan from Mohakhali has halted.
When a newsperson asked the adviser about Titumir College, Wahiduddin Mahmud said, “The education ministry has issued a statement in this regard. We clearly said there, Dhaka University does not want to take the responsibilities of seven colleges. Seven colleges also do not want to stay with Dhaka University. This is reasonable. That is why there is a special committee under the chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to set up a separate university including the seven colleges. Titumir College is also included among the seven colleges…. The sufferings and disadvantages of the students of those colleges are being discussed there.”
The education adviser further said that there are many old and big colleges like Rajshahi College, BM College, Ananda Mohan College, MC College. It is not that all of those have been turned into universities.
Addressing the students of Titumir College, Wahiduddin Mahmud said, “It’s alright to demand for Titumir University and wage a movement for that. But you will have to sit for exams. You will not be able to achieve anything in the future if you don’t study. Many students of Titumir College Titumir College have written to me that they want to attend classes. If you want to announce programmes, announce a programme that won’t create public sufferings.”
Speaking about this, the adviser also said, “We think it is not reasonable to demand an announcement of a university by setting a deadline. We won’t take any decision in the face of demonstrations issuing a deadline to meet the demand. If such a decision is taken, this will remain a burden, not only for us, but also for a long time.”
Professor Wahiduddin Mahmud also remarked that the interim government was not formed to meet such demands. “We have come for a transition into a democratic system with good governance. There could be some minor reforms since we have got the time.”
The education ministry’s statement issued on Saturday mentioned special consideration for Government Titumir College. When the adviser’s attention was drawn to that part of the statement, he said, “I did not have any special consideration. It was not there in my writing. The secretary edited what I had written. They could do, maybe this is diplomacy. I’m not aware of that.”
Quoting from the taskforce formed under the planning ministry, Wahiduddin Mahmud said that it proposed decreasing the number of public universities. This is true. There are 55 public universities in the country now. Half of those were set up in the past seven years. Bangladesh has made a record in setting up universities fast.
Several commissions were formed and plans were made over 7-8 years for setting up Dhaka University, he recalled.