The University Grants Commission (UGC) yesterday advised the North South University (NSU) to enhance its vigilance on students and also devise a clear recruitment policy for teachers. It also advised the university to increase the frequency of meetings with parents and guardians and discuss why students remain absent from classes or exams, in order to ensure strong monitoring of the students.
A four-member UGC team, headed by its member, Prof. Dr Dil Afroza Begum, made these suggestions to the NSU authorities during its visit to the university yesterday.  
She told The Independent that after visiting the university, they had a meeting of more than three hours with the university authorities, including its vice-chancellor (VC), treasurer, registrar and deans.
The team discussed various matters, including the recent carnage at the Holey Artisan Bakery in the city’s Gulshan area and the attack on Sholakia Eidgah, wherein students from North South University were involved. One of the attackers at the café, Nibras Islam, as well as another at Sholakia Eid congregation, Abir Rahman, were both NSU students.  
“Regarding these two students, the NSU authorities told us that they were the university’s past students in 2012 and 2015 respectively. The teacher, Hasnat Reze, was a part-time teacher till 2013. The authorities disclosed that the students were not their students anymore as they had been missing from the university for several semesters,” she said. Prof. Afroza Begum said the team also visited the NSU library, but it did not find any material that could provoke extremism and militancy. Some books of the banned militant outfit Hizb-ut Tahrir had been found in its library last year.
“The NSU authorities have taken a number of steps, as per our suggestions, to prevent such incidents from being repeated. Thankfully, they have realised the gravity of the situation,” said Prof. Afroza Begum.
The NSU authorities expressed their inability to constantly monitor the 20,000-odd students as they spend a lot of time outside the campus with their guardians and friends, she said.  “We suggested stepping up vigilance on students. We also asked the authorities to have in place a clear recruitment policy for teachers. We told them to arrange teacher-parents meetings more frequently,” she added.