Cumilla University, May 20 (UNB) - The authorities of Cumilla University (CuU) on Monday formed a body to investigate the allegation of blasphemy brought against one of its students recently.

The student was identified as Joy Dev Chandra who allegedly hurt religious sentiments of Muslim community, by making defamatory remarks on Islam and the prophet on social media Facebook.

The three-member body was formed led by CuU proctor Dr Kazi Mohammad Kamal Uddin, said a press release signed by Deputy Registrar Md Dalilur Rahman.

Earlier on Sunday, Comilla Kotwali Model Police detained Joy Dev from the city's Thakurpara area.

A case was filed against him under Digital Security Act, said Kotwali model police station sub-inspector Imam Hasan.

Meanwhile, the university administration also suspended Joy, who was a student of Finance and Banking department, over the matter.

Rangpur, May 20 (UNB)- Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur (BRUR) authorities have formed a three-member committee to settle the issues of seniority, promotion and seven years’ salary of Mahmudul Haque, who was recently appointed as a teacher of the university following a court verdict.

The committee was formed at the 61st syndicate meeting held in BRUR liaisonoffice in Dhaka on Wednesday with its Vice-chancellor Prof DrMajor Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullahin the chair,said sources who attended the meeting.

The committee members are BRUR Registrar Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal, Rangpur Divisional Commissioner Mohammad Joynul Bari and Dhaka University Professor Dr Shuchita Sharmin.

The committee was formed following a letter submitted by Mahmudul who joined the Mass Communication and Journalism department at the university as its teacher on March 10 last after a legal battle for seven years.

In the letter written on May 14, Mahmudul demanded seniority, promotion to associate professor, chairmanshipof the department,salary and benefits to be effective from the date of 21st syndicate meeting and compensation for the long legal battle.

On October 15, 2017 the High Court directed the university authorities to appoint MahmudulHaqueas a teacher following the recommendations of the selection board made on January 13, 2012 and approved by the 21st and 22nd syndicate meetings.

Later, the university authorities filed a leave-to-appeal petition and a review petition with the Appellate Division challenging the HC verdict but the apex court upheldthe HC judgment.

SUST, May 15 (UNB) – The summer and Eid-ul-Fitr holidays of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) started on Wednesday.

All academic activities will remain closed from May 15 to June 13 while the administrative activities will remain suspended from May 22 to June 13, said a SUST press release.

The academic activities will resume on June 16.

Dhaka, May 14 (UNB) - The levels of aid to education continue to stagnate, growing by only 1 percent a year on average since 2009, the figures, released by the Global Education Monitoring Report, published by Unesco, show.

In 2017, aid to education totalled US$ 13.2 billion, down 2 percent or US$288 million compared to 2016, says Unesco on Tuesday.

Manos Antoninis, director of the Global Education Monitoring Report says the commitment is not there. “There has been big talk about big ambitions ever since 2015 when our new education agenda was set, and yet donors are shifting money around, tinkering with different ways to spend a fixed sum, but not giving more.”

Antoninis says the trends are alarming. “A drop in aid to education could be something to celebrate if it looked like it was due to governments needing less, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.”

Governments in low-income countries spend, on average, 16 percent of their budgets on education, far more than richer countries, and are off track meeting even the 2015 target of universal primary education, said the director.

With no action from donors to support them, it’s even less likely that our ambitious education goal will be reached”.

Much of the cut to total aid to education can be explained by the United Kingdom decreasing its aid to education by 29 percent, of which 60 percent was a drop in its allocation to basic education.

From being the second largest donor to total basic education in 2016, it has fallen to fourth place in 2017 with US$ 517million.

Overall, Germany tops the donor scoreboard for aid to education, disbursing US$2 billion in 2017, followed by the United States with $1.5 billion and France with US$1.3 billion.

France was the donor that increased its funding the most from 2016 to 2017, by a total of US$207 million.

This is in line with the announcement that France would increase its official development assistance to 0.55 percent of its gross national income by 2022.

However, 58 percent of Germany’s and 69 percent of France’s aid is directed at scholarships and imputed costs for students from developing countries to study in their tertiary education institutions.

If these items were excluded, the remaining aid to education would have decreased even more over the past year, by 5 percent or US$534 million, as aid to higher education increased, while aid to secondary education fell by 2 percent and aid to basic education by 8 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to Unesco.

Donors have not met their promises to keep to the UN target of 0.7 percent of gross national income to foreign aid.

Doing just that and allocating 10 percent of that aid to primary and secondary education would have been enough to fill the US$39 billion dollars annual financing gap.

Yet, education has become less of a priority for development partners, with the share of education falling from a peak of 10.7 percent of total aid in 2007 to just 7.1 percent in 2017.

Of the top ten OECD donors to education, the United Kingdom is the only G7 country dedicating the UN target figure of 0.7 percent of its gross national income to foreign aid.

The fall in aid raises questions about the global commitment to achieving SDG 4, the global education goal.

An increasingly fragmented architecture for financing education is not helping.  A new multilateral mechanism, the International Financing Facility for Education, which aims to lower the cost of borrowing for education for middle-income countries, is expected to be announced later this month.

It is an addition to the Global Partnership for Education, which provides grants to low income countries, and the Education Cannot Wait fund, which focuses on emergency contexts.

Dhaka University, May 14 (UNB) – A three-member committee has been formed to look into Monday’s clash between factions of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) after announcement of a 301-member central body. 

New Vice-Present Al Nahian Khan Joy, Law Affairs Secretary Fuad Hossain Sahadat and Research Secretary Pallab Kumar Barman are members of the committee.

It has been asked to submit a report within 48 hours, said a Chhatra League press release issued on Monday night.

At least seven people were injured during the clash at Madhur Canteen. Witnesses said the melee took place when a number of BCL activists, who did not get any post in the new committee, held a press conference in the canteen.