Aid for JU students goes to teachers’ pockets

Unlike other public universities, JU teachers and staff have been gobbling up lion’s share of the income for around a decade despite severe criticisms. There was no official monitoring or set of rules for the distribution of the earnings until 2014. Even though the university Syndicate had finalised a method to distribute the money among teachers and staff that year, the matter of keeping an amount for the students’ welfare has remained ignored this year too. According to the University Grants Commission, a major part of the earnings from admission fees should be given to the students’ development fund while the rest to be distributed among the teachers involved with the admission process. The prices of admission forms have risen by around Tk250 in the past five years but applicants are not given any additional facilities, students alleged. They said the authorities have instead made the admission tests more complicated and controversial. According to official data, the university earned a total of Tk112,360,300 from 220,298 applications sold under the academic session of 2016-17 against about 2,040 seats. The earnings were around Tk9 crore in the two previous sessions. In 2015-16 session, Teletalk received Tk8,860,022 (10% of total earnings) for providing technical assistance. The rest – Tk79,740,203 – was distributed among the teachers and staff, according to a Syndicate meeting document of December 3, 2015. As head of the admission management committee, Vice-Chancellor Prof Farzana Islam received Tk1.25 lakh, pro-VC and treasurer got Tk1.15 lakh each, while members and secretary of the committee, and the teachers who discharged duties during the tests received Tk1,02,000 each. Meanwhile, a total of 12 teachers who were in charge of ensuring security during the admission test got Tk1,02,000 each while five officials got Tk50,500 each. Almost the same amount of money was withdrawn by the teachers and staff in the previous sessions, according to Syndicate decisions made on September 29, 2014 and April 12, 2015. Only Tk10 lakh was deposited to the students’ welfare fund in 2014-15 session, said sources at the treasurer office. Mohammad Ali, deputy registrar (education), said there was no specific policy on who should get what amount of the earnings. “If the government formulates a policy, we will certainly follow the rules,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.Admission tests in shifts condemnedTeachers involved with the admission process are apparently reluctant to change the existing system disregarding call from different quarters to take the tests of all applicants for one unit at a time – instead of holding the tests in five to seven shifts which is time consuming. Moreover, the authorities use separate question papers for the applicants in every shift which the teachers and students term discriminatory. They allege that the authorities do not want to simplify the tests and will not use the educational institutions near the campus because it will decrease their income. In such cases, hassles of the applicants could be reduced while the academic activities would not need to be postponed for over a week. Sheikh Rahat, general secretary of Jahangirnagar Sangskritik Jote, deplored how the students had been deprived of their due rights. “It makes us sad as we have long been facing severe crisis of transports and dormitory, healthcare and library facilities, but they [teachers] do not pay heed to our sufferings. Instead, they are taking money from the admission earnings depriving the students.” Prof Abdul Mannan, chairman of the UGC, said: “There is a policy to keep the major portion of the money [earned from admission tests] with the university fund to carry out development activities for the students and the rest to be distributed among teachers as honorarium.” The issue is likely to be discussed at a meeting to be held between the chancellor and the VCs soon. “Chancellor Abdul Hamid suggests that the public universities arrange admission tests jointly to lessen hassles of the admission seekers,” Prof Mannan said.