‘Commercialisation’ of edn protested

Four political parties -- Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), Socialist Party of Bangladesh (SPB), Gano Forum and Nagarik Oikya -- on Sunday slammed the government for its move to commercialise education in the country’s public universities. Addressing a human chain, leaders of the four political parties observed that the attempts to increase tuition fees and introduce high-cost evening programmes in several public universities over the last few years are nothing but a plot to commercialise higher education, which will lead to a greater social discrimination. The human chain was jointly organised by the four political parties in front of the Jatiya Press Club in protest against the recent attacks by Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) activists on peaceful demonstrations of Rajshahi University (RU) students as they were agitating against the increases in tuition fees and the scheme to launch commercial evening courses at the RU, according to a news agency.