Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid addressing the principals of government and private colleges of Dhaka during a meeting at International Mother Language Institute in the city on Sunday, August 5, 2018 Bangla Tribune

The government will monitor the teachers' efforts to bring back the protesting students to class rooms, says the minister

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid has directed the principals of government and private colleges of Dhaka to convince their students to vacate the city roads and return to their classes at any cost.

He came up with the directive during a meeting with the teachers at the International Mother Language Institute around 3pm on Sunday, reports UNB.

"The chiefs of educational institutes will be held accountable for the movement of students. They have to take steps from their own positions and figure out how to convince and take the students back from the streets to the classroom,” he said.

"Otherwise, they (teachers) will have to take the responsibility of everything. The government will monitor their efforts to bring back the protesting students to their classrooms,” Nahid said.

Referring to the protesting students, the minister said: "The government has accepted their nine-point charter of demands. They have achieved victory and now to sustain their victory they should return to their classes. The current situation cannot be tolerated at any cost."

"If the movement runs for long, many vested groups may instigate it to other directions. Rumours may be spread and anarchy may occur,” he said.

Nahid also sat with the headmasters of different schools in this regard.

Students of different schools and colleges have been staging demonstrations for the last eight days demanding safer roads and punishment of those responsible for a road accident on the city’s Airport Road that killed two students of the Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment School and College on July 29.

Apart from blockading major city streets, they have also been enforcing traffic laws on their own, including checking driving licences and vehicle registration and fitness documents.

The movement has spread across the country in the past few days.

However, violence marred Saturday and Sunday’s demonstrations in Dhaka when police and activists of reportedly, the ruling party affiliate organizations got involved.