The students' four demands are: first, declaration of the present four-year honours degrees as equivalent to the previous three-year honours plus one-year masters degrees and four-year Medical, BUET, Mymensingh Agriculture University and BIT degrees. Second, certificates awarded on completion of the honours course must clearly mention that it was of four-year duration. Third, shifting the dates of the special BCS examinations to be held to recruit teachers under the education cadre on a priority basis as per directives of the prime minister. Fourth, making sure that all government and private sector institutions recognise the four-year integrated honours as a professional degree at par with other such degrees.

The students' demands are logical and rational, something which even the embattled DU Vice-Chancellor SMA Faiz has admitted, albeit belatedly. But the 'procedure' or the method applied for articulation went awry. Prior to the adoption of the integrated or special honours course, sufficient thought should have been given to the imperative necessity for introducing it with a complementary package of equivalence to other four-year university level degrees. Their eligibility for recruitment to government, public sector autonomous organisations and the corporate sector ought to have been guaranteed. But they could not appear at BCS examinations which set master's degree as the criterion for candidacy. Now, the university authorities are writing to the Public Service Commission and some public and private sector organisations urging them to recognise four-year honours course degree as a fully fledged professional degree. We wonder, why this exercise was not undertaken earlier on. Does it not sound like eating the humble pie that the university authorities have had to ask back the honours certificates already issued, which did not mention that it was a four-year course as a matter of fact?

Anyway, as the crises boiled over on Wednesday, the VC met with the Prime Minister. He had also talked to the President. An emergency meeting of the Dhaka University Syndicate was held in which all the demands of the students received positive consideration. A notification affirming that the students' demands have been met was circulated by the Dhaka University authorities. In spite of the assurances, the students stuck to their guns and announced the indefinite strike since Thursday, saying that they wanted to see clear signs of implementation of the VC's commitments contained in his declaration before relenting on their programme.

The overarching question here is this: how could the university authorities, or for that matter, the Education Ministry, be so oblivious of the fact that any alteration of the course-length towards attainment of an important degree without guaranteed equivalence to similar degrees would be meting out step-motherly treatment to a segment of the student community? It conjures up such an image of unfairness that it could have landed the university authorities on court cases. So, our point is that which could be done administratively with ease at the appropriate time was left to the vagaries of student demonstrations to sort itself out. At what cost? It is learnt that the students sat six times with the authorities, but nothing came of the sittings. Why? There is cause for self-searching. The maturity, sagacity and credibility of the university authorities have been once again put on the line.

The problem with snowballing is that we may not have seen the last of it. For, a university divided along political lines always bears the portents of many fishing in the troubled waters.

We have a word for the students. Since your demands were so logical and justified, you should have had no use for bellicosity or violence to win a point.