Polytechnic Students Submit Memorandum to CEC

Polytechnic students have once again taken to the streets demanding the cancellation of recommendations to recruit BSc degree holders to the post of Sub-Assistant Engineer, alleging that the move is part of a conspiracy to derail the 13th National Parliamentary Election.

On Saturday, January 31, more than 500 students marched from Dhaka Polytechnic Institute and staged a sit-in in front of the Election Commission (EC) office in Agargaon.

Later, an 11-member delegation under the banner of Technical Student Movement Bangladesh submitted a memorandum to the Chief Election Commissioner. Speaking to journalists present at the scene, Md Siam, a fourth-semester second-year student of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute, alleged that the inter-ministerial committee formed to resolve the “existing professional problems between BSc and diploma engineers” has instead placed students of both BSc and diploma engineering streams in direct confrontation with each other.

He claimed that such actions indicate a conspiratorial effort to sabotage the 13th national election, adding that the committee formed by the current government must be dissolved.

Another protester, Jisan Hossain, a sixth-semester third-year student of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute, said, “We have already submitted a memorandum with the same demands to the Chief Adviser.”

The students have been consistently demanding the cancellation of recommendations made by a committee led by two advisers of the current government, which proposed allowing the recruitment of both BSc and diploma engineers to tenth-grade Sub-Assistant Engineer posts.

In the memorandum submitted to the Chief Election Commissioner, the protesters outlined nine demands:

1. Ensure admission of diploma engineers to at least 33 percent of seats in all engineering universities through a credit transfer system.

2. Reinstate the opportunity for diploma engineers with three years of experience to apply for ninth-grade positions, as was previously in place.

3. Ensure the right of diploma engineers to apply for tenth-grade posts in all government agencies where degree holders are allowed to apply for ninth-grade positions.

4. Prevent any engineer from entering the general cadre by occupying posts designated for general education candidates.

5. As diploma and degree engineers have equal credit hours, ensure parity in professional identification—for example, if diploma engineers are required to use the title “Diploma Engineer” before their names, degree holders must be required to use “Degree Engineer.”

6. Allow diploma engineers access to higher education based on credit hour equivalency when pursuing advanced studies in the general education stream.

7. End the unilateral authority of the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB) and BAETE over engineering education, university membership, and curricula, and place this responsibility directly under government oversight.

8. Determine fair equivalency between engineering and general certificates based on curriculum credit hours.

9. Immediately accept and implement all reasonable demands declared by the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh (IDEB) in the national interest.

The memorandum states that the protesters are demanding immediate acceptance and implementation of these demands put forward by the Technical Student Movement Bangladesh.

DBTech/DM/EK/OR