By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net
In a controversial step, students of Aliah University surrounded the University Authorities and more than 25 Faculty members for 18 hours when they assembled for a meeting at the Newtown Campus on yesterday. The agitating students claimed that they have been cheated by the University with the false promise that the University has All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) approval for B.Tech and M.Tech courses. But in reality, it does not have any approval for the M.Tech course. The University Authority, agreeing with the students’ claim, clarified that AICTE approval is not necessarily the yardstick for employment in public or private sector jobs. The acting Vice-Chancellor of the University retorted that the cancellation of stipend as Teaching Assistantship for the first year M.Tech students from the University Fund is the reason for the students’ agitation.
On Thursday, more than 96 students from first-year M.Tech courses gathered at the Aliah University New Town Campus compound and locked the main entrance gate when all the faculty heads from various Departments of the University entered to attend a meeting to draft new procedures for admission in the coming session at around 4.30 P.M. Since then, all the Faculty heads, Controller of Examinations and other Staffs have been detained into the Campus. However, the Acting V.C, who is also the Registrar of the University and who attended the meeting, was allowed to leave the Campus due to illness.
The protesting students confided that they have been agitating for the last six months, but the University did not pay any attention to their demands. They blamed the University Authority for publishing wrong information in advertisements and in the University Prospectus that the University has AICTE approval.
Kazi Minhazul Islam, a first-year M.Tech student and one of the protesting students spoke to TwoCircles.Net and he said, “We were assured by the University Authority through various public notices, through the University Prospectus and through a Fact Finding Report done for the last year’s chaos in the University Campus that the University has AICTE approval. But the Authority does not have any Letter of Approval issued by the AICTE for M.Tech courses. They are playing with our career. What is the need for a degree that does not have any approval by concerned authority?”
He also points out that the University had said it would sanction stipend for M.Tech first-year students as Teaching Assistantship but this year it has been postponed. This has also created unwanted problems for the students. “For the last three years since the course was started in 2015, the first year M.Tech Students would get a stipend of Rs 8,000. We approached the Authority to ensure whether we will get that stipend. If not, we would have applied for other national-level scholarships. But the authority assured us that we would get the money and debarred us from applying for other scholarship. But they hanged a notice after 17 days of the National Scholarship deadline that the stipend for teaching assistant would not be given to us. Are they playing with our lives?”
The Acting Vice Chancellor, Dr Nurshad Ali said regarding the AICTE approval: “We have AICTE approval only for B.Tech courses and not for M.Tech courses.” He added, “The fact is that we will not get approval for M.Tech until 2021 according to AICTE rules and guidelines.” He elaborated that since the University got AICTE approval in 2015 for its B.Tech courses, the university is not able to apply for approval for M.Tech courses until four B.Tech batches from 2015 pass out.
As for scholarship, he rejected the students’ claim that they were assured with the stipend. “When students took admission in the M.Tech Courses, they were told that they would not be given any stipend from the University Fund. It was stopped in March last year, a quite long time before their admission.” He clarified the reason for not sanctioning the stipend. He said, “ the State government has initiated a new scholarship scheme, namely Swami Vivekananda Merit-Cum-Means Scholarship, for all university students and there our students are eligible for this scholarship. So they can apply for this scholarship. If the government does not sanction the money in the
University Fund in order to disburse students as stipends, what will we do?”
The Dean of the Students’ Welfare, Dr Amzed Hossein, who is also among the 25 faculty members, said, “ we have called every teaching faculties today in order to come up to any solution for the welfare of the students.”