Education advisor at a loss over how to solve 7 affiliate colleges deadlock

The education advisor says he was working on a method to separate the colleges from Dhaka University before the situation turned awry

The impasse made by Dhaka University’s decision to no longer oversee admissions to the seven colleges affiliated has left Education Advisor Wahiduddin Mahmud stumped.

After a programme at North South University on Tuesday, he said the university’s decision to step back from overseeing the admissions to these colleges from the 2024-25 session has deepened the problem.

“Dhaka University did not make the announcement after discussing it with me… I was not prepared for this,” he said.

Clashes broke out between students of Dhaka University and students of the seven colleges late on Monday night. Vice Chancellor Niaz Ahmed Khan announced the decision to separate from the seven colleges the following day.

“Now, a way to solve this problem won’t occur to me alone. I wasn’t ready for this,” Wahiduddin said.

Responding to a question, he said Dhaka University’s announcement gave hints that the University Grants Commission, or UGC, would handle the admissions for the seven colleges.

“The UGC is not a university, so it has no authority to handle admissions. To be a university, certification is needed and it is completely illegal to manage admissions without it.”

Since a mass uprising toppled the Awami League government in August, the students of these colleges have been protesting for an end to their affiliations with Dhaka University and the establishment of separate universities.

The protesting students claim affiliation with Dhaka University robs them of their individual institutional identity and they struggle to highlight it.

Wahiduddin mentioned that he had proposed the formation of a university infrastructure for the colleges to separate them from Dhaka University three months ago.

“It takes a lot of analysis to turn the seven colleges into universities. They have HSC candidates. Usually, universities don’t have HSC students, he said.

“We’ve kept many models in consideration, formed a big committee led by the UGC. We were moving step by step.”

He stressed that the process of combining the colleges to establish a new university can’t be copied from previous instances.

“There are law issues and policies that need to be made. Certification can be achieved after that.”

Wahiduddin said the protesting students had agreed to this as well.

“We were proceeding with this in one way but now we are at a deadlock. I can’t think of with a way to solve this by myself. We’ll discuss it with all the parties. We can’t just ignore the students.”