Session jam menace
Photo: STAR
Known as a ghastly term to almost all the students studying in public universities in our country, session jam refers to the failure of the institutions to graduate students as scheduled, due to lengthy closures mainly occasioned by politically motivated violence. General students, however, are the worst victims who suffer the dire consequences of it. There are some inter-related factors responsible for the session-jam. But the most prominent is the clashes among different student wings of the political parties as politics of Bangladesh is always reactive, confrontational and violent, compelling the authorities to shun academic activities. Student politics, as observed, has lost its glory and become a catalyst for igniting conflicts! Due to the persistent session jams, the cost of education is increasing, the students are losing many valuable years from their lives and a huge number of university work hours are also being wasted. The students of these institutions, on an average, are compelled to finish their courses two years after their year-mates studying in private universities where session-jams do not occur. On top of that, many departments suffer from longer session-jam than others mainly because of the indifference of the authorities concerned, teacher shortage and internal conflicts among teachers. Many students of these universities who are the lifeblood of our country have the experience of completing their four-year honours degree in approximately seven years! This is not because of his/her failure in passing the exams but because of the failure of the respective departments to hold exams in time! Who will bear the unwanted and additional educational expenses? Can the politicians return their valuable time? Successive governments have done nothing in terms of finding a suitable solution to the problem. Political interest was always given place above the interest of the students. Without the integrated efforts of the government and university authorities, a durable solution to this particular problem will, no doubt, elude us.
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