Mass resignation and the way forward

Never before has the country seen mass resignations of this scale. The resignation of the country's ousted premier opened the floodgate of voluntary stepping down by people in high positions of the three organs of the government---the legislative, executive and judiciary. But not all did relinquish their positions on their own; many were forced to give up in the face of protests and demands from students who brought the Awami League government down on the one hand and also colleagues and subordinates with grievances on the other.
However the resignation overdrive does not end in the three organs of the government, the wave of retrenchment and voluntary departure has caused heads rolling from the top positions to other important functionaries down the rank in public universities, medical colleges, colleges ---both government and non-government---and even schools. The elected local government positions were mostly vacant because the office bearers were either in hiding or left the country following the fall of the previous government. Considering the dislocation of public service, the interim government had to appoint administrators to the vacant positions under the Local Government (city corporation) Ordinance 2024 which brought about amendment to four related laws.
The legislative, executive and judiciary changes met with little opposition and replacements were not particularly difficult to find. But in case of finding the most suitable candidates to head the public universities including the four autonomous of those, seems to have proved quite daunting. It would be unwise to think that all the vice chancellors of the 55 public universities were unqualified for the job much as they may have the backing of the erstwhile ruling party. Party affiliation notwithstanding not every VC was a rabid supporter of the government political agenda and the Chhatra League's overarching influence and bulliness. It would be unfair not to give credit to the immediate past VC of the University of Dhaka under whose able guidance the premier highest seat of learning in the country could attain the best ranking ever at 554th in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings 2025, the latest such assessment.
The problem, however, lies in the fact of politicisation of administration and institutions. All the political parties that have ever been in power must be held blameable for this but in her continued four-term stint out of five with the head of the government, Sheikh Hasina took partisan politics to an unprecedentedly extreme level. The public universities were no exception to this. This has vitiated the environment of education, research and the creation of knowledge. Even when the atmosphere is charged with such partisan politics, it is not easy for a VC to catapult the university from a ranking in the 691-700 band in the previous year and from 801-1,000 band for five consecutive years before that.
Not all the public universities could keep pace with the DU simply because their VCs were not up to the task against the odds. But a few tried their best to maintain the scholarly reputation of their varsities. Now that the universities are running without VCs, what future awaits those in terms of tertiary education? Given the leadership of students in the uprising against a government accused of partisan politics, the overriding concern is sure to be to get wise, erudite and neutral VCs in charge.
But it will fall through if campus politics is not banned. Today's reality demands that anyone entering the campus area must shed one's personal political allegiance outside of the educational institutions' boundary. Teachers, general staff and students would be free to commit themselves to politics with allegiance to political parties on the street or in party offices beyond the campus. Happily, 11 public universities, two government colleges and six medical colleges have banned student politics ---13 of which has also banned politics for teachers and general staff. Let the political binary be banished from the university campuses. However, they should have non-partisan students' unions that will champion the cause of the students in general.

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