Diploma engineering students, teachers oppose course reduction

A group of diploma engineering students, teachers called for stopping the initiative of the education ministry to reduce the four-year Diploma Engineering course to three years.

Under the banner of Bangladesh Diploma Engineering Students-Teachers-Peshajibi Sangram Parishad, they put forward the demand at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters' Unity on Tuesday. 

At the programme, the leaders of the platform placed their four-point demands including halting the education ministry's suicidal initiative to course reduction, amending the definition of the Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC)-2020 and some of its sections.

In a written statement, Mirza ATM Golam Mostafa, member secretary of the organisation, said the unreasonable and hasty decision of the ministry will push the entire Diploma Engineering education system to the brink of destruction.

If this initiative is implemented, diploma engineers in the workplace will be devalued nationally and internationally and promotion in the workplace will be hampered, he added. 

Golam Mostafa‍ said such a decision is suicidal. This will make the country's diploma engineering courses of lower standard than the rest of the world. Diploma engineers will lose their salaries and dignity in the international job market.

On 24 May, the ministry formed a committee to reduce the four-year Diploma Engineering course to three years.

Institution of Diploma Engineers Bangladesh (IDEB) general secretary Shamsur Rahman said "We appeal to the government to take necessary steps to modernize the four-year Diploma Engineering course curriculum to meet the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution." 

At the end of the four-year course, six more months of practical work should be kept to connect with the industrial organisations, he opined. 

Other demands include special increment for diploma engineers, increase in promotion quota to 50 %; to keep 1:5 ratio of degree and diploma engineers in government and semi-government, autonomous bodies, petrobangla corporations and various companies in the power division, determining the minimum salary and designation of diploma engineers working in the private sector and cooperation from the government to build them as entrepreneurs.

Their demands also include reduction of teaching staff shortage in Technical and Vocational Education & Training (TVET) institutes and polytechnic institutes and promotion of teachers and job regularisation of teachers appointed under the Skills and Training Enhancement Project (STEP).