Absconding CU teachers
This type of
irresponsible behaviour is not expected from our teachers, especially from the teachers serving in the highest sphere of public academic institutions
A number of 34 teachers of Chittagong Universitys several departments have not reportedly returned to their workplace from abroad since 1985. Moreover, all of them had obtained loans from the university that they had not repaid. Now the CU authorities have decided to recover those unpaid loans amounting to some Tk 2.37 crore.
Besides serving as bad examples of loan recovery, these teachers also represent a case that raises the question about the professional and personal integrity of our university teachers. Perhaps many of these teachers hadnt returned to country because of more lucrative offers abroad. Though this speaks negatively about their morality, but the loans that they had obtained should have been repaid by them long ago.
The exact figure of loans, salaries and other allowances that the 34 teachers received before and during the study leave adds up to some Tk. 2,37,71,037, according to the university. Rather curiously, all of these teachers have been reported to have either resigned or sacked by the university. In this case, its going to be extremely complicated to recover the money since the university authorities had actually asked the teachers to pay back the money on several occasions without any response from the teachers.
Still, the rate of interest will also keep increasing until the loans are not recovered. Earlier, the CU had also published advertisements in several national newspapers in this regard, so the initiative to recover unpaid loans had actually commenced a lot earlier but with little effect in terms of their recovery.
The point, however, is this type of irresponsible behaviour is not expected from our teachers, especially from the teachers serving in the highest sphere of public academic institutions. These absconding teachers deserve exemplary punishments and should actually be deterred from working at our public and private universities if they return home.
Teachers are expected to conduct their professional obligations in such a way that can make them role models to others. Its worrying that if they themselves set detestable examples of patriotism and financial misdeeds like these Chittagong University teachers, what better can we expect from their students?
Drawing lessons from the scandal, it is expected that all our teachers would practise and cultivate the highest degree of ethical standard and professional integrity.
