Intense traffic grips Dhaka as polytechnic students block Satrasta Mor

Pushing the authorities to meet their three demands, a large group of Dhaka Polytechnic Institute students have blockaded the Satrasta intersection in the capital's Tejgaon area.

In a post on its Facebook page at 12:46pm on Thursday (20 March), Dhaka Metropolitan Police's (DMP) Gulshan Traffic Division notified citizens of the development, saying, "At this moment, around 300 to 400 students from Dhaka Polytechnic Institute are staging a protest by blocking the road at Tejgaon's Satrasta with various demands.

"As a result, traffic movement towards Saatrasta from Mohakhali is being disrupted."

On Wednesday (19 March), polytechnic students started a nationwide movement boycotting classes and exams with three demands, including the immediate cancellation of the 30% promotion quota for craft instructors to the junior instructor position, according to media reports.

Yesterday afternoon, they boycotted their midterm exams and gathered in front of their respective institutions around the nation. The students announced that their class and exam boycott would continue until their demands were met.

The other two demands are making the "Diploma in Engineering" a mandatory educational qualification for the position of junior instructor (technical - grade 10) and appointing only technically educated personnel to all positions, including craft instructor, in the country's technical institutions.

The protesting students told reporters that craft instructors do not have a technical background and are basically lab assistants for diploma engineers, usually with educational qualifications of only 8th grade or SSC pass. They lack the qualifications to be teachers of diploma students.

The students argued that if craft instructors become teachers at diploma institutes, it will severely impact the quality of education and destroy the technical education sector.