The Jagannath University (JnU) Act mandates at least one meeting of the syndicate in every two months, but it has not been happening for the last five months. Due to this, the approval of various important decisions including teacher promotion, appointment of registrar is being delayed. The aggrieved teachers expressed their anger about this matter.
A syndicate meeting of the University, approves various decisions including formulation of its constitution, annual report, final appointment of teachers-officers-employees, promotion, bill passing, budget, financial disputes, expansion of various infrastructure works, approval of various decisions of Academic Council, publication of various examination results.
Section 18 of the Jagannath University Act-2005 clearly mentions that the meeting of the Syndicate must be held at the date, place and time fixed by the Vice-Chancellor. At least one meeting of the syndicate should be held in every two months.
The 93rd syndicate meeting of the university was held on January 31 this year. Since then, the university administration could not organize any syndicate meeting till date. If the syndicate meeting is not convened on time as per law, various important decisions get tangled. Even university activities came to a standstill.
The senior teachers of the university feel that the administration has violated the law as the administration has not been able to hold the syndicate meeting for five consecutive months.
Meanwhile, on April 8, the syndicate meeting called for the final decision to take the admission test out of the cluster was abruptly postponed. The syndicate meeting was supposed to discuss other matters including its own admission procedure.
Meanwhile, four syndicate meetings were held in six months from January to June 2022 in Jagannath University. As there was no meeting held in the last five months, the departmental promotion is delayed for several teachers.
One of the teacher assistant professor of Islamic Studies Department, Md Atiar Rahman's promotion promotion board was held in March this year. The board decided to promote the teacher as associate professor, which will be finalized in the next syndicate meeting. According to the rules, this teacher will not come under the promotion if he is not promoted by 30th of June.
The promotion of Md Atiqul Islam, Assistant Professor of Department of Statistics, Fazle Elahi Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, Department of Bangla, Bivas Kumar Sarkar, Assistant Professor, and Sanjida Rahman Mallika, Department of Botany, are also on hold. If the syndicate meeting is not held by this June, they will be deprived from their desired promotion.
Bivas Kumar Sarkar, Assistant Professor of Botany Department, said that there is no problem when the promotion syndicate will be done. The Vice-Chancellor will call the syndicate meeting after the vacation.
However, the mew teacher recruitment process is also stuck due to the syndicate meeting. On May 31, the viva board for the recruitment of social work department teachers held. Due to the syndicate meeting, the final teacher appointment of this department is stuck.
The teachers of the university have expressed their frustration and anger as the syndicate meeting is not taking place on time. Expressing disappointment, the leaders of teachers' associations have also demanded regulation of syndicate meetings.
On condition of anonymity, several professors said that if there is no regular syndicate meeting, the implementation of the academic council's decision delays the publication of the results of various examinations, promotion and all kinds of normal activities.
In this regard, the general secretary of the University Teachers' Association, Professor Dr AKM Lutfar Rahman said, "The promotion of our teachers has been stuck due to the syndicate meeting."
We have asked the administration to call for the meeting again and again. It is being said from the administration that the meeting cannot be called on time due to admission tests and holidays.
University Syndicate Member Prof Md Noor Alam Abdullah expressed regret and said, "The syndicate meeting should be held in every two months for the administrational work to be done properly. However, I don't know why the syndicate meeting was not been held for so long since January.'
In this regard, Ohiduzzaman Zaman, the registrar of the university (contractual) engineer said syndicate meeting will be called very soon. Sometimes it becomes difficult to coordinate the time with all the members of the syndicate.
It was not possible to convene the meeting on time due to holidays and internal problems of the university The Syndicate meeting will be held when the Vice-Chancellor returns home. Hopefully no one's promotion will be withheld for the meeting.
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