Dhaka University students, teachers and staff celebrated the university’s 92nd founding anniversary on Monday amid a great deal of festivity.Every year, July 1 is being observed to mark the launch of the academic activities at the university in 1921.
Dhaka University has gradually turned into a centre of academic excellence and a beacon of hope to the nation.
This year’s theme is: ‘Dhaka University Cherishes the Spirit of Liberation War and Freethinking’.
To mark the day, the university organised a number of programmes, including colorful processions, exhibitions, discussions, reminiscence and cultural sessions, debating competitions and friendly footballs matches.
Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid formally inaugurated the day’s programmes by by hoisting national flag and releasing pigeons and balloons and cutting a cake at the Mall Chattar area, adjacent to the university’s Administrative Building, in the morning.
DU Vice Chancellor (VC) Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Prof Dr AK Azad Chowdhury, Pro-VCs Prof Nasreen Ahmed (Academic) and Prof Shahid Akther Hossain (Administration), Treasurer Prof Dr Kamal Uddin, Registrar Syed Rezaul Karim and faculty members and students attended the inaugural session.
Afterwards, hundreds of students and teachers of the university took out a colourful procession from the administrative building that paraded through the campus and ended at Teacher-Student Centre (TSC). A discussion was held at the TSC auditorium on this year’s theme.
Education Minister Nahid said, “Dhaka University is the inheritor of the country’s history and tradition. The university has deep, intricate relations with the nation’s history. It’s the Dhaka University students who led the country’s all movements since the Language Movement.”
“The university’s teachers, students, officials and employees were the first to have sacrificed their lives during our Liberation War,” he added.
The minister remarked that the Dhaka University was playing the key role in practice of freethinking.
Professor Dr Ajoy Kumar Roy presented the keynote paper on “The Liberation War Spirit and Freethinking’ at the discussion.
Dhaka University, the oldest university of Bangladesh, was established by the British rulers in 1921. Within a short period of its launching, the university earned reputation as the “Oxford of the East.”
Its teachers and students played a pioneering role in all progressive and democratic movements during the pre-liberation period leading to the emergence of independent Bangladesh in 1971. – bdnews24.com
