The Rajshahi University authorities on Thursday decided to cancel the quota facility for freedom fighters’ grandchildren, but to retain the five per cent quota for their children for admission to undergraduate courses under the 2024-25 academic session.
The authorities, however, decided to keep the ward quota for the children and grand-children of the university teachers, officials and employees.
RU vice-chancellor professor Saleh Hasan Naqib said that they could not cancel the ward quota as most of the admission committee members gave their opinions for keeping it.
‘We, however, have decreased it to 3 per cent from 4 per cent’, he added.
Salahuddin Ammar, one of the RU coordinators of the Student Movement Against Discrimination, meanwhile, in a Facebook post on Thursday, issued an ultimatum to the university authorities to cancel the ward quota within the next 48 hours.
He also threatened to stage a fast-unto-death protest on Sunday if all kinds of quota were not cancelled.
According to officials, 427 students were enrolled at the university under the ward quota in the past five years while 71 of them were enrolled despite failing to secure the minimum pass mark in the entrance tests.
A RU press release, meanwhile, stated that the preliminary application process for the first-year admission would begin on January 5 and would end on January 16 while the tests would be held on April 12, 19, and 26.
Earlier, the government issued a notification on July 23, cutting quotas for freedom fighters’ children and grandchildren to 5 per cent from 30 per cent for jobs in government, semi-government and autonomous institutions amid student protests that led to the fall of AL-led government on August 5.
