CUET Academic Activities Closed for 28 Days, Education Ministry Seeks Recommendation for High-Powered Committee

Academic activities at Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET) have remained closed for 28 consecutive days. The prolonged deadlock has effectively brought the university's normal teaching to a standstill, and the Ministry of Education has now moved to help resolve it.

The ministry has sought a recommendation on forming a high-powered committee to end CUET's ongoing deadlock. In other words, the problem is no longer being treated as a matter for the university alone; a process has begun to find a solution through a strong committee at ministry level.

Classes and other academic activities remaining closed for 28 days is a major crisis for any university. At an engineering university the curriculum is time-bound and sequential; when teaching stops for nearly a month, the effects ripple through the semester schedule, examinations and results.

The uncertainty is most worrying for students. Until there are answers on when classes will resume and how suspended teaching and assessments will be made up, anxiety about academic life keeps growing. A long break also puts pressure on students' plans and mental preparation.

The ministry's step of seeking a recommendation suggests that, as the deadlock has dragged on, a formal, high-level intervention is now considered necessary. If a high-powered committee is formed, its task will be to talk to the parties concerned and identify the causes of the deadlock and the way to resolve it.

Seeking a recommendation for a committee, however, is not the same as reaching a solution. How quickly normal activities return to CUET will depend on when the committee is formed, who sits on it and what it recommends. Everyone in the university community will now be watching that process.

A long deadlock at an educational institution is not just one campus's problem; it affects the wider higher education system as well. If an engineering university's academic calendar is disrupted, there is a risk that future engineers will also be delayed in entering working life.

In this situation the most urgent need is a quick and acceptable solution. Through discussion with all parties concerned, decisions are needed that minimise the loss to students and restore an atmosphere of trust on campus.

Those concerned see the Education Ministry's initiative as a step in that direction. Once recommendations are received and the formalities of forming the committee are completed, work will begin on the ground; only then will it become clear how much longer the deadlock may last.

For now, CUET's students, teachers and guardians are waiting for the ministry's next decision. Everyone hopes the 28-day standstill will end and the campus will soon be alive with teaching again.