Strike at DU

After Rajshahi and Jagannath universities, Dhaka University has became restive over fee hike. The Progressive Students’ Alliance comprising left-leaning student bodies has been enforcing a daylong strike at Dhaka University (DU) from Tuesday morning to protest ‘exorbitant’ tuition fees at the Television and Film Studies Department and fee hike in other wings. The leftist students’ body announced the protest programme at a press conference at Madhur Canteen on Sunday. DU unit Samajtantrik Chhatra Front President Rashed Shahriar said that before the strike got underway that they would also take out a torchlight procession on the campus, demanding the lowering of the tuition fees at the Television and Film Studies and other departments. DU unit Chhatra Union President Maruf Billah Tanmoy said the Department of Television and Film Studies was introduced under the Social Sciences Faculty for the first time in the 2013-2014 academic sessions. In other departments of the faculty, a student needs to pay Tk 30,000 to Tk 40,000 to complete graduation. But a student of the new department is being charged a total of Tk 137,000 as admission and other fees in four years. Chhatra Front President Rashed Shahriar said such huge fees went against the policy of a public university. The department’s teachers, however, said the course included many practical courses, and the high fees were meant to cover those costs, according to a news agency.