Pay staff at the private universities

Ordinarily, it doesn't make sense for a university to stop paying its staff in the middle of a semester that the students have already paid for. Then you have a government directive asking the universities to ensure that the staff are not laid off and their salaries are paid. Yet rules and practices from ordinary times seldom apply to emergency situations like the one we are experiencing, which require innovative solutions. The fact is, many private universities are reportedly failing to pay—fully or even partially—salaries to their employees, plunging them into great economic hardship. According to a report by The Daily Star, during March and April, several universities have paid half or less than half of the salaries, while several others have not been able to make any payment at all. It is totally unacceptable that such a situation should exist and continue to be unaddressed, which only shows the incompetence of our education authorities to respond adequately to a crisis situation.

The reason cited for the universities' failure to pay is that semester and admission fees are the two major sources of income for a private university. But these sources have been closed off for months now due to Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, making it difficult for the universities to pay their employees. There are several ideas floating around as to how to address this crisis: one is, as offered in a joint statement by some 829 public and private university teachers, that private universities pay salaries using their reserve funds. According to the Private University Act 2010, each private university is supposed to have a reserve fund, which is meant to be used to bear expenses in times of crisis. Another idea is for the government to provide a stimulus package to the universities so that they can pay their staff for at least six months. The Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh (APUB) already sent a letter to the UGC in this regard on April 29, and it promised to repay the amount in instalments within three to four years.

An ideal solution may lie in combining the two ideas to reach an agreement that works for both the government and the private university authorities. The government must take the lead in this regard, and act swiftly so that staff at private universities are paid their salaries before Eid and are not laid off in the middle of a pandemic. We have yet to devise a workable plan to resume academic activities in universities even after nearly two months of a lockdown. Allowing the salary problem to continue will only make things worse.