Thousands of university students in Bangladesh are protesting against a recruitment system that they argue favors children of war heroes and certain groups for high-paying government jobs. They claim the system is discriminatory and are advocating for merit-based recruitment. Currently, a third of the positions are reserved for the children of those who fought for the country’s independence in 1971, with additional quotas for women, ethnic minorities, and the disabled.
Critics assert that the system unfairly advantages the children of pro-government groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who secured her fourth consecutive election win in January. Hasina is the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
This week, students blocked roads and highways in Dhaka and other major cities, causing significant traffic disruptions. Dubbed the Bangla Blockade, some protesters even placed logs on railway tracks in the capital, affecting train services to the northern regions.
Bangladesh’s top court temporarily suspended the system on Wednesday, but protests are expected to continue until it is permanently abolished. The system had been reinstated by a separate court just last month after being halted since 2018 following weeks of protests.
Protest leader Rasel Ahmed told the news agency, “We will not return to classrooms until our demand is met.” Another protester told BBC Bangla that their demand is for quota reform, not cancellation. A different student emphasized the need for a “permanent solution.”
Government jobs are highly coveted in Bangladesh due to their high pay, with more than half of the positions reserved for specific groups. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Hasina criticized the protests, stating that students were “wasting their time” and that there was “no justification for the anti-quota movement.”
Bangladesh, once among the poorest countries in the world, is now one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. Its per capita income has tripled over the past decade, and the World Bank estimates that over 25 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last two decades. However, the economy faced turmoil in mid-2022 due to the pandemic and the global economic slowdown.
