The unlucky 7

A master's student of chemistry at Dhaka College who was planning to finish post-graduation a while ago, he is now waiting impatiently for his remaining exams to be over so that he can shoulder some of the family responsibilities that his father bears alone.

"At this age, does it feel good to take money from my father who earns meagre pay by weaving handlooms back home?

"I used to give tuitions, but that also got suspended due to the pandemic. I need a job immediately to support my family," said a frustrated Hazrat, who hails from Sirajganj.

After a delay of two and a half years, his final examinations began in March. But he could appear in only two out of the four exams, before the country was hit by the coronavirus outbreak, suspending exams indefinitely.

"We don't know when our master's exams will resume. Even after they start, it will take at least four to five months more for the results to come out. I will be 27 in January and am really worried about how many BCS exams I can avail," he said.

Hazrat added he cannot even apply for chemist jobs in many private companies as these require a master's degree.

"We contacted our teachers time and again -- they only said the Dhaka University authorities will take all the decisions as our college is being supervised by DU now. We are the unlucky ones, no one cares for us," Hazrat said, all in one breath.

Students of the seven colleges recently affiliated with DU are worried about their future as the pandemic threw their already delayed education into further disarray.

These seven colleges are: Dhaka College, Eden Mohila College, Government Shaheed Suhrawardy College, Kabi Nazrul Government College, Begum Badrunnesa Government Mohila College, Mirpur Government Bangla College, and Government Titumir College.

PROTEST ANNOUNCED, THEN POSTPONED

The students of these colleges had announced a plan to hold a protest in the capital's Nilkhet area yesterday but it was postponed. A number of policemen were seen to be present in the Nilkhet area since morning.

Shahriar Mahmud, one of the protesters, told The Daily Star that they didn't receive the necessary police permission to hold the protest. The college principals also called them the night before requesting them not to hold the protest and asked for a week's time to resolve their issues, he added.

"If all our demands are not fulfilled within a week, we will not wait for police permission for our movement," he said.

Their main demand is to reduce session jam in the colleges, Shahriar said, with only one batch of students per session.

The students' other demands are that the number of courses students are allowed to fail in and still be promoted to the next year be raised from two to three, all exam results be published within 90 days, and that the newly attached word "affiliate" be removed from their certificates.

On Tuesday, the principals of the seven colleges held a meeting after the students announced their protest.

At the meeting -- chaired by Professor Muhammad Abdul Moyeen, chief coordinator of the seven colleges -- they decided to start taking the postponed exams from January 20.

Contacted, Prof IK Selim Ullah Khandaker, coordinator of the seven colleges, said three sessions' final exams, which had been postponed in March, will be resumed on a priority basis.

The other four sessions' exams, scheduled to be held in July this year, will now be held using the OMR (Optical Mark Reading) method -- tests with multiple choice questions instead of written ones.

Selim Ullah, also the principal of Kabi Nazrul Government College, said they will start taking class assignments and presentations online from December 26, the date when Dhaka University announced it would start their final exams.

The DU authorities said they were preparing to hold the exams of honours courses using the OMR method instead of written tests to complete the postponed examinations quickly.

"Except for the master's exams, we are waiting for the government's decision and preparing to hold the rest of the tests in the future using the OMR method," said Bahalul Haque Chowdhury, examinations controller of DU.

DRAWN-OUT AFFILIATION PROCESS

In 2017, the seven colleges were brought under DU from National University (NU) with the aim of increasing the quality of education and reducing session jam.

However, this affiliation -- without a proper plan to make it work -- only put students in trouble with uncertainty over their examination schedules and results, even now three years on.

It was an unpopular decision at DU, where its students held protests in July last year and in January 2018 over concerns with the overall affiliation and opposition to the seven colleges' students receiving the same certificates DU students received.

But as the system finally started getting into shape, came the Covid-19 pandemic -- dashing the career ambitions of nearly 200,000 students in the seven colleges.

They are now lagging behind the NU colleges in completing their graduation and post-graduation, the students alleged.

"My batch mates at NU completed their post-graduation in August last year whereas we're still in the dark about our exam schedule. We used to think NU college students faced bad session jam, but ours is even worse," said Ishrat Jahan, a master's student of Government Titumir College.

Ishrat was admitted into the college in the 2012-13 academic year, when it was under NU.

Students of the 2016-17 session -- the last batch while still under NU -- are the worst sufferers of session jam.

"We are one year behind the National University students. Their final tests are also on hold due to the coronavirus situation. But we only just started our fourth year," a Dhaka College student told The Daily Star, requesting anonymity.

Eden Mohila College postgraduate student Mahmuda Jahan said, "When we speak to the principals, they say they can't do anything until Dhaka University gives a decision. We've wasted almost a year and a half during the affiliation process. Now we have also been stuck for nine more months.

"If the situation remains unchanged, many of us won't be able to apply to government jobs because of our age."