DU students lock Arts, another faculty

Leftist student organisations are observing a daylong strike at Dhaka University on Tuesday by locking up the main gates of Arts and Social Sciences faculties. They called for the strike on Sunday to protest ‘exorbitant hike’ in tuition fees at the Department of Television and Film Studies, which was started in the current session under the Social Sciences Faculty. The protest was also aimed at fee hikes for studying other subjects. The university opened at 8am, but activists of Progressive Students Alliance locked the gates at the Arts and Social Science faculties. Then, they organised a rally in front of the Arts building after a few processions. Honours courses in the Department of Television and Film Studies was introduced under the Social Sciences Faculty for the first time in the 2013-2014 academic session. A student of this department is being charged Tk 137,000 as admission and other fees in the four years needed to complete the course – as against up to Tk 40,000 for any similar course. Samajtantrik Chhatra Front DU unit’s President Rashed Shahriar said “Such high fees stands against the policy of a public university. Students from lower and middle class families won’t be able to take higher study if public universities charge such high fees.” The students who recently got themselves admitted to the Television and Film Studies department were not told about the amount of money before their admission, said one of them, Arifur Reza Chayan. However, Vice-Chancellor (VC) AAMS Arefin Siddique said: “The university took this decision after much consideration,” according to bdnews24.com.