EB Correspondent: Students of the Department of Al Fiqh and Legal Studies, part of the Faculty of Law of the Islamic University, have held a sit-in program to protest the decision to conduct the admission examination for the 2024-25 academic year through the Faculty of Theology and to demand that students be admitted through the Faculty of Law.
They held this sit-in program under the university's administration building at around 1:30 pm on Saturday (March 1). More than fifty students from different academic years of the department were present at the time.
It was found that the university's Al Fiqh and Legal Studies Department had been admitting students as a department under the Faculty of Law through a cluster admission test for a long time. Recently, without consulting the students, the teachers of the department decided to conduct the admission test through the Faculty of Theology in a meeting on the last working day before the Ramadan holiday. When the matter came to light this morning, the students met the department president and demanded the decision to be canceled. But when the department said that the decision would not be changed, the students came in front of the administration building and started a sit-in program.
Students said that despite demanding a change in the name of the department and revision of the syllabus for a long time, the teachers of the department have not taken any effective steps so far. According to the UGC guidelines, they are supposed to teach a law course of 3400 marks, but the Al Fiqh department is teaching a course of 2200 marks. In addition, although 136 credits are supposed to be taught, they are not taught. In addition, students are suffering from severe session congestion. Despite repeated demands to the department regarding these problems, there has been no improvement.
The students also said that the Bar Council can monitor the quality of any university or college where law is taught if it wants. Therefore, if the Department of Al-Fiqh and Legal Studies of the University is included in the Faculty of Theology, the Bar Council can decide not to accept the certificate in the court if it wants. That is why we are against the admission system through the Faculty of Theology. We want the admission test for this department to be taken through clusters like last year and the syllabus should be reformed and a syllabus suitable for the LLB degree should be formulated.
At one stage of the program, the university's proctor, Professor Dr. Shahinuzzaman, and student advisor, Professor Dr. Obaidul Islam, arrived at the scene. They spoke to the students and listened to their demands and suggested a solution to the department without first coming to the administration. But the students requested a meeting with the administration, stating that they had been informed that the department would not provide cooperation. Later, in the absence of the Vice-Chancellor, the students met with the university's treasurer, Professor Dr. Jahangir Alam. At this time, after listening to the students' statements, the treasurer asked them to submit a written application to the vice-chancellor tomorrow through the student advisor and advised them to discuss it directly with the vice-chancellor when he arrived.
