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Voter enumeration job forced teachers to leave syllabuses incomplete when more than four lakh city primary students in the Dhaka metropolis took the annual exams this year.
   Three hundred and forty-five government and registered non-government schools in the city began holding the annual exams, earlier scheduled for a December 8 start, on November 14, according to information available with the district primary education office of Dhaka.
   The district primary education office in the first week of November issued an oral instruction, asking the teachers to complete taking the annual exams during November 14–19 and the syllabuses could not be completed, said a number of teachers.
   ‘The syllabuses remained incomplete as the classes were suspended about three weeks before the schedule. Classes are usually held till December 6, but this year the government directed us to complete the exams much earlier,’ said the headmaster of a government primary school at Lalbagh.
   ‘A significant number of students are getting poor grades. We are evaluating the answer scripts in addition to our extra job of voter enumeration,’ said the teacher. ‘We are under pressure to hurriedly prepare the results.’
   ‘It is a matter of concern… It is not right to force primary schoolchildren to take the exams when teachers could not complete the syllabus. The government should avoid engaging primary schoolteachers in such jobs frequently,’ said economist Hossain Zillur Rahman, who also works in the area of primary education.
   A teacher of a government primary school at Ramna said a large number of students might fail the year-final exams.
   ‘We had to spend time on training in voter enumeration, even by keeping the schools closed. All the teachers were involved in the process late October,’ said a government primary schoolteacher at Mirpur.
   ‘All the primary school teachers will need to remain engaged in the enumeration job till the end of December,’ he said.
   M Delwar Hossain, district primary education officer of Dhaka, brushed aside the claims of the teachers that voter enumeration job hampered academic activities and forced teachers to take the exams without completing the syllabus.
   ‘Syllabuses are usually completed in November. There are some teachers who always find faults with the government directives,’ he told New Age on November 29. Voter enumeration does not take place every year, he explained.
   The government traditionally engages primary school teachers in a number of field-level jobs such as children literacy census, immunisation programme, family planning campaigns and inspection of sanitary latrines and teaching residents of the locality how to prepare ORS throughout the year.
   Many of them were also engaged in supervising the open market sale of rice in Dhaka in March and April. Primary teachers had to shuttle between OMS centres between 9:00am and 5:00pm instead of taking classes.
   ‘Such jobs also hamper our teaching activities. When we were busy supervising sale of rice, our students were appearing for the first terminal exams late April,’ said a teacher at Ramna.
   The education adviser, Ayub Quadri, could not be reached for comments. His public relations officer said the adviser would not talk with the press on this issue.

Rich countries responsible for climate change should pay Bangladesh about Tk 21,000 crore (about $3 billion) in recompense for the losses caused by the November 15 cyclone Sidr, a local advocacy agency demanded in Dhaka.
   Supro, the abbreviation of Sushasoner Jonno Procharavijan or campaign for good governance, placed the demand at a press conference at Dhaka Reporters’ Unity Friday.
   It laid the blame for the disaster squarely on the industrially rich nations, which release huge green house gases in the air and contribute heavily to climate change affecting life and livelihoods in countries like Bangladesh.
   The organisation’s chief executive Prodip Kumar Roy, presenting a written statement, quoted a worldwide CO2 emission report that showed the USA emitted 24.4 per cent, EU 15.3, China 14.5, Russia 5.9 and India 5.1 in 2005, while Bangladesh released only 0.1 per cent of the carbon dioxide released into the air.
   Supro chairman Abdul Awal, Ziaul Haq Mukta of Oxfam-GB, Azgar Ali Safi of Action Aid-Bangladesh and Swapon Mahmud of VOICE attended the press conference, among others.
   A citizen in a developed country on an average causes a discharge of 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum for his or her luxury, compared to per head emission of only 0.2 tonne from Bangladesh, the statement said.
   But the cost Bangladesh pays for the influences of climate change is much bigger than any of the rich countries. Out of 632 species of birds, 12 have already become extinct and 30 more are on the verge of extinction, the statement said, quoting an IUCN report that assessed adverse impacts of climate change on the country’s bio-diversity. Bangladesh will not be able to bear the cost of protecting its people, land, environment and forests from the impacts of natural disasters including cyclone Sidr, Supro said, asking rich countries to pay for rehabilitation of environmental refugees.
   Bangladesh, which spends 13.5 per cent of national budget for foreign debt servicing, needs unconditional aid to recoup losses caused by disasters, it said.
   It also demanded that rich nations must reduce carbon gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2012.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of the bomb attack on a cultural programme of Udichi Shilpi Goshthi.
   On this day in 2005, eight people, including two Udichi activists Khwaja Haider and Sudipta Paul Shelly, were killed and 50 injured in a suicide bomb blast in front of the Udichi office on Azhar Road in the town.
   To mark the anniversary, different socio-cultural organisations, including Udichi,
   have drawn up various programmes.
   Though two years on, the victims of the December 8 bomb blast or their family members have yet to get any compensation.
   Shahnaj Begum, 28, wife of Khwaja Haider, told New Age that her family didn’t receive any compensation from the government. Shahnaj, mother of two children, said they became helpless at the death of Haider, the only breadwinner in the family.
   ‘I didn’t want any help from the government as they failed to punish the criminals involved with the killing.’
   Another victim Sudipta Paul was also the lone breadwinner in her family. Sudipta’s old parents with her ailing brother became helpless, but they didn’t get any help from the government.
   Aruna Paul, mother of Sudipta said, ‘Though I have been suffering from a serious disease, I cannot buy medicines for want of money.’
   Family members of other victims like Rani Begum, Joinal, Raisuddin, Yadav Das and Jahanara also echoed the same.
   Two cases were filed with Netrakona police station, accusing Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, his wife Fahima Khatun, Ataur Rahman Sunny, Asaduzzaman Ponir, Kausar Ahmed and Sanaullah.
   The cases were pending with special tribunal in Dhaka, the police said.

Chief Justice M Ruhul Amin on Friday said future negotiations under the World Trade Organisation should be focused on expansion of fair trade, not just free trade.
   ‘The management of international institutions should be restructured to improve equality, fairness, and democratic practices. Market access should be provided in the developed countries for exports from developing countries,’ he said while launching a book titled ‘National Law in WTO Law: Effectiveness and good governance in the world trading system’ by Sharif Bhuiyan, a Supreme Court lawyer, at the BRAC Centre Inn in Dhaka.
   Speaking as the chief guest of the programme chaired by eminent lawyer Dr Kamal Hossain, the chief justice also underscored the importance of justice in an inclusive and fair global economic order to put an end to poverty.
   The book published by the Cambridge University Press simultaneously from Cambridge in the United Kingdom and New York in the United States examines how national laws are treated in the WTO laws, both in the WTO treaty and dispute settlement.
   ‘The book is predominantly concerned with dispute settlement, making only passing references to issues of substantive laws and the important North-South divide,’ Ruhul Amin observed. ‘In that context, I hope we will see more research from developing countries and Bangladeshi scholars, which will provide insights into how to address the substantive imbalances.’
   At the programme, economist Wahiduddin Mahmud emphasised formation of a high-powered and permanent negotiation team to get maximum benefits from trade negotiations under the WTO.

The 17th edition of BBC Bangladesh Sanglap will be held at Parjatan Holiday Complex at Deer Park in Rangamati today.
   The residents of Rangamati will have chance to put their questions directly to politicians and opinion leaders as a four-member panel as well as 150 people from invited audiences will take part in the dialogue, said a press release.
   The recording of the programme, to be presented and moderated by Shakeel Anwar of BBC Bangla Service, will start at 2:45pm. It will be broadcast on BBC Bangla radio at 8.00pm on Sunday and telecast on Channel i at 8:00pm on Monday.
   The ongoing series of the dialogues are produced by BBC Bangla Service in conjunction with BBC World Service Trust.

A new forum is in the making to press home the demand for compensations from the developed countries, the major contributors to the global climate change.
   A group of eminent citizens has taken the initiative to launch the forum, styled the People’s Forum for Climate Change Mitigation, soon with the slogan ‘No help, compensate’.
   The conveners of the proposed forum at a news conference at the Dhaka Reporter’s Unity on Friday blamed the rich countries for the adverse changes in the world climate.
   The frequent natural calamities in Bangladesh including the latest cyclone were caused by the drastic changes in climate, former secretary Syed Margub Morshed told the conference. ‘The affluent countries cannot just shake off their responsibility by providing the affected people with some relief. They must also compensate for the damage.’
   The forum will send a memorandum to the United Nations secretary general and chairman of the Climate Change Conference in Bali, claiming the compensations, said Ferdousi Begum, executive director of the Development of Biotechnology and Environmental Conservation Centre.

Only three per cent drugs used in the country are now being imported and those include insulin, vaccines and anti-cancer drugs, pharmacists said on Friday.
   ‘Some of the imported medicines, especially vaccines that can also be produced in the country, become useless for want of cooling chain,’ president of the pharmacy graduates association Professor ABM Faruq said at a reception for fresh pharmacy graduates at the Institute of Engineers, Bangladesh.
   Chairman of the trustee board of Transparency International Bangladesh Professor Muzaffer Ahmed administered an oath of professional honesty to about 500 fresh pharmacy graduates.
   Professor ABM Faruq, also chairman of the Department of Pharmaceutical Science of Dhaka University, presided over the function, which was addressed, among others, by Bangladesh Diabetic Association president Dr Azad Khan,
   former director of drug
   administration Professor Abdul Gani and Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industries Association general secretary Nazmul Hassan.