Rajshahi, Feb 28 – A 54-hours strike has been started by students of Rajshahi University Population Science and Human Resource Development department demanding a change of their department name to ‘Applied Statistics’. The university authority decided to hold a meeting on the next Monday, March 02. As the students are continuing their strike 48 of them became sick after more than 2 days hunger strike and got medical treatment at the hospital.
The students started a hunger strike in front of the Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose academic building at 10 am on last Wednesday. They were continuing the strike till writing this report.
According to the students, 48 of the became sick so far. Some of them got treatment in the university health centre and others at the Rajshahi Medical College Hospital. One of them is still taking treatment in the hospital. At least 10 students were seen taking saline on Friday.
According to a student of the department SM Shohag Hossain, they are taught 34 credit from population science and 16 credit from human resource development along with this 101 credit from Dhaka University Applied Statistics syllabus. These match 95% with PSC Statistics and Applied Statistics syllabus. So they want to get their department’s name changed.
University pro-vice-chancellor Prof. Choudhury M Zakaria went to the strike spot at around 10 am on Friday and requested the students to stop the hunger strike.
He said to the students that University vice-chancellor wanted to negotiate with the teachers and students of the department on next Monday. So they should stop hunger strike showing honour to the vice-chancellor.
But the students will not stop their strike until getting the realization of their demands.
The students were demanding to get included the subject code in the Public Service Commission (PSC) of their department. But now they demand to make a change in their department name. – RU Correspondent
