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Buet negotiations take wrong route

VC threatens to recruit new teachers; education boss says agitating teachers against peaceful solution

Staff Correspondent
Buet students take part in a sit-in at the university's administrative building around 11:30am yesterday. There was hardly any headway in resolving the ongoing crisis at the engineering university yesterday with its vice-chancellor unwilling to step down and agitation going on for his removal. photo: amran hossain
After the agitating Buet teachers threatened to resign en masse, the vice-chancellor yesterday said he would hire teachers if necessary. For his part, the education minister suspects somebody might be trying to hinder the crisis reso-
lution efforts.
"Is there any scarcity of teachers in Bangladesh? If they [agitating teachers! resign, we will definitely recruit others," VC Prof SM Nazrul Islam told reporters, replying to queries at his residence yesterday.
"Don't private universities
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run with teachers from outside?" he posed a question. "If necessary, teachers will be hired from outside."
Prof Nazrul also termed the ultimatum a deception, saying the university rules did not permit such en masse resignation.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, who discussed the crisis with senior Buet teachers and former students and vice-chancellors on Monday, said the agitating teachers did not want a solution.
They declared an extreme programme at a time when he taken an initiative to break the deadlock through discussions and decided to meet the prime minister to find a way out.
Behind the issuing of the Sunday deadline, there might be a motive on someone's part to foil the efforts being made to resolve the crisis, he said.
The comments of the VC and the minister came a day after the Buet Teachers Association that leads a movement for the removal of the VC and his deputy threatened to resign en masse if their demand is not met by 4:00pm Sunday.
At a hurriedly called press briefing at his ministry, Nahid said, "We were surprised to learn of their [teachers association's] extreme programme as we were already heading towards a solution through talks."
The association came up with its programme only 40 minutes after he had held talks with the university's senior teachers, the minister noted. "It seems that they don't want the process to get going. They want to prolong the problem or thwart our efforts."
As he briefly informed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina about the Buet crisis, she asked him what results would be there when the teachers had declared such an extreme programme, Nahid said. "Now what will we say to our prime minister and the chancellor?"
Asked why the VC and proVC were still in office despite the agitation, he said, "Action cannot be taken just on the basis of complaints... it has to follow a process."
Contacted, Prof Mujibur Rahman, president of Buet Teachers Association, said the teachers had cut their movement short into a symbolic two-hour sit-in on the assurance of the education minister. "So there is no scope for misunderstanding
about the fresh programme."
"We did not put pressure on the minister. What we said was the vice-chancellor and the pro-vice-chancellor have to be removed as it is not possible to work under them.”
Meanwhile, the Buet teachers and students staged a two-hour sit-in at the administrative building from 11:00am.
The movement began on Wednesday after the authorities shut the institution for 44 days in advance for Ramadan and Eid-ul-Fitr. The same day, the heads of all faculties, institutes and departments of Buet resigned in a body.