About 650 students of different departments of the Institute of Fine Arts of Dhaka University (DU) have fallen behind their academic schedule by up to six years due to lack of teachers, adequate number of classrooms and irregularities.

As many as 600 students of the honours courses are facing a backlog of three years, while 50 students of the masters classes are six years behind the scheduled time of pass-

ing out. So, the five-year courses offered by the institute might take 11 years to finish.

Director of the institute Prof Mohammad Abdus Sattar said, "We are concerned at the loss of time…we will try our best to eliminate session jams within four years." He said session jams occur due to delay in publication of results and constraints like irregular holding of classes.

He also said they would try to publish results of examinations

within two months from the test date to reduce session jams.

Some students blamed the authorities for the session jams. They said the teachers do not take classes regularly and that is why the courses are not finished in time.

Many teachers are busy with non-academic activities, a student said. "Session jams are crippling our academic life," he said adding that nothing is being done to solve the problem.

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Students of the institute are demanding a change in syllabus, computer facilities at all the departments, elimination of session jams and improvement of the exams system.

The students of the first year (old) and third year have organised demonstrations in the last two months to press home their demands. They also boycotted their exams scheduled for August 11.

Students alleged that the institute authorities have decided to hold exams without finishing the courses. They also said the teachers lost the result sheet of an examination of third-year students of the drawing and painting department.

They claimed that session jams were the result of the failure to improve the examination system. In every department of the DU, some changes were made to improve the system. "Our teachers usually take six to seven months to publish results and that aggravates session jams," a student said.

The university rules have made it mandatory to publish the results of examinations within three months.

Some teachers of the institute said the university authorities are not giving the financial support that the institute needs. They said students of eight batches are now enrolled, though the infrastructure of the institute was designed for only four batches. Many students cannot attend the theoretical classes regularly due to lack of space in classrooms.

Activists of student organisations and some general students who did not have the required attendance percentage to sit for the exams kept the office room, common room and

library of the institute locked for eight days recently.

"We have informed the DU authorities of our problems several times but they have not responded," a teacher of institute said, adding that the DU authorities do not appoint teachers for more than two years and that has created a shortage of teachers at the institute.

Prof Abul Hashem Khan of the institute said administrative and bureaucratic tangles and shortage of classrooms and teachers are the main reasons behind session jams.

He also said political pressure sometimes forces the teachers to delay examinations.

To eliminate the academic backlog, honours courses were introduced at the institute replacing the traditional system (two years for pre-degree courses, three for degree and two for master's courses) but that has not produced any positive results so far, another teacher said.

The last batch of the traditional system could not complete their coursesin 13 years.