Students lock teachers inside room after poor SSC results in Sherpur
Teachers were released after they agreed to bear the costs of answer-script re-scrutiny and 2027 form-filling fees for failed students.
Students who failed this year's SSC examinations and their guardians locked teachers inside a room at Ramerchar High School in Sherpur Sadar upazila yesterday (10 August), later releasing them after the teachers agreed to meet two demands.
According to Prothom Alo, 78 students from the school appeared for this year's SSC examinations, of whom 21 passed. Local residents claimed that none of the students who passed were from the area and that they were students from different schools in Sherpur town.
After the results were published, disgruntled students and guardians went to the school premises and staged a protest. At one point, they locked the teachers inside a room from outside.
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Headteacher Rasheda Begum informed the district secondary education officer about the incident. Police from Sherpur Sadar Police Station later went to the school, rescued the teachers and brought the situation under control.
The students and guardians agreed to release the teachers after the school authorities accepted two demands, according to police and local sources.
One demand was that the teachers would bear the cost of re-scrutinising the answer scripts of students who failed. The other was that the teachers would pay the form-filling fees for students who retake the subjects they failed in 2027.
Local guardian and Union Parishad member Abul Hossain told Prothom Alo that his elder son had passed from the school with good results, while his younger son failed because of teachers' lack of attention and negligence in teaching.
Headteacher Rasheda Begum denied the allegation, saying the teachers had not been negligent in teaching and that the poor results were due to students' failure to study regularly.
She said internal disputes within the school's management committee may also have played a role in the incident. She confirmed that the two demands had been accepted.
Sherpur Sadar Police Station Officer-in-Charge Sohel Rana told Prothom Alo that police were sent to Ramerchar High School after receiving reports that failed students were staging a protest and had locked the teachers inside a room. The teachers were later rescued.
