Failing moral values in the noblest profession

A Rabindra University teacher named Farhana Yeasmin Baten allegedly cut 14 male students‍‍` hair forcibly on 26 September. The incident led the students to the protest and cancel examinations.

Later, the university authority suspended her and closed the university indefinitely; the investigation committee-collected CCTV footage reportedly shows she is cutting the hair of a student at the entrance to the examination hall with a scissor.

Teachers are called the conscience of a nation but in recent times they are criticized badly for some of their colleagues ‘unethical’ work ranging from interference with students‍‍` freedom of expression to illegal recruitment.

A former vice-chancellor (VC) of Rajshahi University named Prof M Abdus Sobhan has placed an unusual recruitment just before the ending of his term, he recruited against 140 posts violating the rules and regulations. Later the concerned authority postponed all the recruitments.

Several teachers failed to show their transparency in the academic work also. Several allegations of plagiarism have been raised against Dhaka University teachers. Recently university declared its verdict on two cases. These are:

University relieved Associate professor of pharmaceutical technology department AK Lutful Kabir from his academic and administrative duties on the allegation of acquiring his doctorate degree submitting an almost 98 percent plagiarised PhD dissertation.

Samia Rahman of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism; Syed Mahfujul Haque Marjan of the Department of Criminology; and Muhammad Omor Faruq of the Department of Islamic History and Culture has been demoted on charge of plagiarism in their research.

Being asked how the relation between teachers and students should be, Serajul Islam Chowdhury, professor emeritus of the English Department at Dhaka University, said, the student-teacher relationship in the universities will be democratic, but what we are observing is totally feudal behavior. Those who behave in such a way should not be in the teaching profession.

There are many kinds of crimes in society, there is also plagiarism. It happens constantly because of the lack of accountability. Plagiarists think that no one would find out his fraud or even punish them. They want to gain something easily by stealing another’s intellectual property, the professor added.  

Mentioning these tendencies as the reflection of the society, he said, we are living in an authoritarian regime and that has been reflected in the educational institutions as well. A huge change is needed to overcome this situation.