The police sprayed water and hurled sound grenades to disperse a section of protesters of about 20,000 unsuccessful candidates of the latest non-government teacher’s registration examinations in front of the National Press Club in Dhaka Sunday morning.
The protesters blocked the road in front of the club urging the Non-Government Teachers’ Registration and Certification Authority to announce them all passed.The police detained seven people from the spot for interrogation.
The candidates began Sunday’s demonstration a week after their June 15 demonstration in front of the NTRCA office in Dhaka to press home the same demand. The NTRCA officials on that day told them that their demand was conveyed to the education ministry as the NTRCA had no option to give pass marks to a failed candidate.
On Sunday, over 500 protesters blocked the road in front of the National Press Club at about 10:00am and the police began to use force at about 11:00am to clear the road, according to the police.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Ramna division deputy commissioner Masud Alam said that they sprayed water and hurled sound grenades to disperse the protesters as blocking the road for an hour created severe traffic congestion and caused huge suffering to the people.
‘We first requested them not to block the road and proposed to help them in communicating with the ministry and the NTRC authorities. But, they wanted the chief adviser to come to them to accept their demand,’ he added.
‘We used force to disperse them from the road as section 144 was also imposed in the area. Now, the situation is under control,’ Masud said in the afternoon.
Shahbagh police station officer-in-charge Khalid Mansur said that they detained seven people from the spot and took them to the police station for interrogation.
The government formed the NTRCA in 2005 to provide certificates following tests to aspiring teachers of non-government secondary level schools, higher secondary level colleges, degree colleges and equivalent madrassahs and technical educational institutions.
From the first to the 17th batches, the NTRCA provided 6,76,662 certificates.
In November 2023, the NTRCA published a notice for the 18th teacher’s registration examination against which around 19 lakh candidates applied.The written test was held on March 15, 2024, and the results were published on October 14, 2024.
The results showed that 83,865 candidates passed the examination and were called to face viva voce.
Following the viva voce, 60,521 candidates passed the examination finally, the final results published on June 4 this year showed.
The candidates who became unsuccessful in the final result later alleged that they were shown failed in the viva voce even though they had done well.source : newage