66 teachers for 15,000 students at Patuakhali Govt College
Academic activities at Patuakhali Government College is badly hampered as only 66 teachers are working there for around 15,000 students.
The 63-year-old institution is also plagued with various other problems including shortage of classrooms and residential arrangement for teachers and students, and lack of library building, auditorium, teachers-students centre, quality canteen, medical centre and gymnasium.
Incomplete boundary walls coupled with insufficient internal roads is yet another problem.
Set up in 1957, the college was nationalised in 1970.
Currently running with honours course in 16 subjects and master’s course in 15 subjects, it is one of the 30 A-grade colleges in the country.
The college was selected as the best college in Khulna division in 1987 while its two teachers Dr Mojibur Rahman and M Nurul Islam achieved the best teacher’s award at the national level in different times.
Former students of the college include Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda, immediate past secretary of public administration ministry Md Faiz Ahmed, and former information secretary Abdul Maleq, said Zafor Iqbal, secretary of teachers association at the college.
Of the posts of 94 teachers including the principal and the vice principal, 28 area vacant for long.
In view of the increasing number of students, the authorities initiated a process to create 85 more posts of teachers for the college a few years ago but the process is yet to be complete.
The English department, which has to conduct a number of classes for students of intermediate (compulsory subject), degree and master’s courses, is running with only three teachers.
Two lecturers are working against the posts of seven teachers in soil science department, while five of the nine posts in chemistry department, and three of the seven posts in accounting and economics departments each are lying vacant for long, said sources at the college.
Najir Hossain, assistant professor of English department, and Md Rashedul Islam, lecturer of soil science, said they are struggling to hold classes regularly as there is acute shortage of teachers.
In absence of residential arrangement for teachers at the campus, they live in rented houses in the town.
Over 200 students are staying in 39 rooms of ‘degree hostel’ that has the usual capacity to accommodate 78 students, said hostel Superintendent Ali Hyder, also an associate professor of philosophy.
No new building was made after the hostel meant for intermediate students was declared abandoned years ago, he said.
The 150-seat capacity lone hostel for female students now accommodates 250 students, said Salina Akhter, superintendent of the hostel.
A large number of students coming from outside have to stay in rented dormitories at different places of the town.
Classroom crisis took a serious turn after three old buildings of the college were declared abandoned in 1992.
The Education Engineering Department later constructed two buildings for humanities and business studies faculties.
As no separate arrangement was made for the science students, they have to attend classes in different rooms of the two buildings.
Around 26,000 books are kept in a seminar room of political science department as there is no separate building or arrangement for the college library.
Contacted, Prof Joydeb Sajjan, principal of the college, said, “We informed the higher authorities on several occasions to solve the manifold problems including shortage of teachers and accommodation but to no positive response yet.”
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