There will be no session jam at the National University by the year 2017, claimed Dr Harun-or-Rashid, vice-chancellor of the university yesterday.
Speaking at a press conference to announce the university’s “Crash Programme to Reduce Session Jam” at his Dhanmondi office in the capital, Dr Harun said: “According to the 2013 annual report of the University Grants Commission (UGC), there is excessive session jam at the National University. This observation is not based on facts at all.”
He said: “Our admission process starts after the admission process in all the public universities ends, which puts us seven or eight months behind schedule every academic year. Without that delay, the students have to put up with a maximum of one and a half years of session jam. How is it an extreme case then?”
Political unrest, blockades and hartals also prolong the session jam as the classes get cancelled during those political programmes, he added.
He said the university, as a test run under the crash programme, published the results of fourth-year honours final exams of 2012, which took place in November last year, on January 13 – two months and two days after the exams ended.
The VC presented another example of the second-year students who took admission during the 2012-13 intake. He said if the current situation remains, the results of their fourth-year final exams will be published tentatively on June 15, 2018, but under the crash programme, their result is likely to come out by June 17, 2017.
“To implement this new programme, our teachers, examiners and all other relevant people have to work very hard in 2015 in 2016. In these two years, they have to forget about taking leave and vacations, and must take classes on government holidays or on Fridays,” Dr Harun said.
“We cannot make for the years that already have been lost due to the session jam, but the crash programme will benefit the future students,” he added.
Among others, the university’s Pro-Vice–Chancellor Professor Dr Munaj Ahmad Noor was present at the press conference.
