SUST students suffer closure

A clash among several factions of Bangladesh Chattra League (BCL) at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) on December 21 prompted the university Syndicate to close it down for 15 days. Although the decision was reversed a day later following student protests, such closures have become routine in educational institutions where BCL factions clash resulting in these institutions being shut down and residential halls vacated, which hits the students the hardest. It plays havoc, not only with the academic calendar but creates panic among students as they are given hardly any time to vacate residential halls.

It makes little or no sense as to why law and order cannot be enforced at universities. Why are armed activists allowed to operate with impunity holding hostage the thousands of ordinary students who have come to study? Why are university authorities unable to call in the help of the law to contain any clash happening on the campus but simply close it down in the hope that tempers will cool and the matter will subside? It is precisely because authorities are unwilling or unable to take strong steps that would be conducive to maintaining some semblance of peace and quiet on these campuses that these elements get away by creating disturbance.

This culture of operating under political patronage that allows student wings to create chaos with impunity has to stop in the interests of the greater good. Session jams, cancelled classes and examinations are not what students signed up for, especially when they are caused by petty feuds of political cadres.