At Jagannath University (JnU), the latest essential item for a successful academic career is not a calculator or a textbook – it is a safety helmet.
In what has become a surreal scene of higher education meeting industrial safety, students of the Mathematics Department have taken to attending lectures and sitting for exams in full protective headgear.
This unconventional fashion choice was born out of necessity on Wednesday. While the 2024–25 academic session was underway in a seminar room, gravity claimed a sizeable chunk of ceiling plaster, which crashed down upon students Tanvir Niaz Fahim and Mahfuzur Rahman Mitul.
The resulting injuries have turned the simple act of learning into a high-stakes game of chance, as students claim there is no way to predict when the next piece of the building might decide to join the lecture.
Naeem, a student now accustomed to the weight of a helmet during class, noted that they were simply “forced” into this new reality for their own protection.
His classmate, Nayan, pointed out the irony of sitting for exams in a hazardous zone, expressing frustration that classes and examinations continue despite the administrative silence following his classmates’ injuries.
The Jagannath University Central Students’ Union (JnUCSU) has not held back, accusing the authorities of long-term negligence regarding the university’s crumbling infrastructure.
Beyond just wearing helmets, the students are calling for a permanent exit strategy – the rapid development of the second campus project in Keraniganj. They argue that they are only in these “unfit” rooms because there is nowhere else to go.
Providing a structural explanation for the chaos, Chief Engineer Helal Uddin Patowary revealed that the danger was literally hidden. False ceilings had long masked structural cracks in the Science Building, but those masks are now being stripped away as renovation plans begin.
While the engineering department prepares cost estimates and designs for repairs, the students of the 18th batch remain under their plastic shells, waiting to see if the administration can move as fast as falling plaster.
