Around 300 EMBA graduates of Jahangirnagar University staged demonstrations on the campus on Saturday demanding certificates they were supposed to get following their graduation more than a year ago.

The protesters cited a number of problems they are facing in job due to the unavailability of certificates for the one-and-half-year programme that cost each of them Tk 1.7 lakh.

Since its inception in September 2011, 1,000 students have enrolled in Evening MBA in 10 batches, and six of those have already graduated, but none has received certificates.

“Those of us, who are in job on the condition of producing an MBA certificate in a later period, are facing a huge crisis in getting promotion, upgradation of status. Some even were fired,” said M Mazhar, a private bank official and sixth batch graduate.

"Furthermore, though we are doing well in job tests, we are not being accepted where an MBA degree is a must,” he told The Daily Star.

An utterly frustrated Nurul Islam, a first batch graduate, said, "I've lost my job at a private organisation because of my failure to supply the MBA certificate in due time. But the [JU] authorities are yet to clarify when they would give out the certificates."

The protesters who brought out a procession, demonstrated in front of the administrative building and handed over a memorandum to Vice Chancellor Prof Farzana Islam in this regard also expressed their anger since the business faculty is inviting a new batch of 110 without addressing the pressing problems of the graduates.

They even went to say that the authorities are making a business of crores of taka overlooking the issue at hand and without putting in place the necessary infrastructure including a library and a computer lab, for which they had paid.

Initially, the faculty would admit 60 students every four months. Now the size of each batch is 110, according to officials.

Prof Amir Hossain, dean of the faculty, said the problem arose from the deadlock centring the demand for resignation of Prof Shariff Enamul Kabir, a former VC, and his successor Prof Anwar Hossain, which spanned the period between May 2012 and January this year.

He told The Daily Star that they would start the distribution of certificates in late November, and added that a meeting on this was scheduled for November 9.