Jagannath University (JnU) Act does not rule for the university to have a Pro Vice-Chancellor. Although the university has passed 15 years since its establishment, the university is still running without a Pro Vice-Chancellor. As a result, academic, administrative, financial and various developmental activities of the university have been hampered since establishment.

Teachers and students have urged the administration for a long time to amend the law, but the university administration has not responded.
They say that if there is a Pro Vice-Chancellor, the administrative complexity of the university will be removed and there will be no slowdown in academic activities. Besides, various problems of the campus including session jam will be decrease very easily.

The former Dean of the Faculty of Life and Earth Sciences, Professor Kazi Saifuddin said in this regard, the work of Pro Vice-Chancellor in our university is being done by the treasurer. But the work of the treasurer and the Pro Vice-Chancellor is different. Due to the absence of Pro Vice-Chancellor, our administrative work has also come to a standstill. Despite repeated appeals to the university administration, our former vice-chancellor did not take any steps to amend the law.

He also said when I was the president of the teachers’ association, there was no step to include the clause of the Pro Vice-Chancellor in the university law. Then I took the signature on a petition from the chairman of each department and submitted it to the register. But the administration did not submit it to the concerned authorities and they delayed it.

Professor Noor Alam Abdullah, President of Jagannath University Teachers’ Association said, “We need a Pro Vice-Chancellor in our university.” I agree with the teachers and students on this issue. We have been trying since 2016 and have also given a letter of recommendation to the Vice-Chancellor on this issue. We are still trying to get a Pro Vice-Chancellor appointed to the university.

University NIL DAL President Prof. Md. Zakaria Mia said, “We have applied to the university more than once to amend the law on the issue of vice-chancellor.” But the university did not submit these applications to the government. University authorities also did not show any activity on the matter.

Other public universities in the country have two vice-chancellors each. There is no provision in our law to appoint it. “We have Pro Vice-Chancellors in many of our contemporary established universities, we don’t have them here,” he added. Our university has more than 600 teachers. There are 106 professors and 26 first grade professors. If the concerned authorities want, they can amend the law and appoint a Pro Vice-Chancellor from our university.

When asked In this regard, the running vice-chancellor of the university Professor Kamaluddin Ahmed declined to comment.