Thousands of students each year travel to different parts of Bangladesh to find a quality education, and the bulk of them move to Dhaka where there is an abundance of highly prestigious educational institutions. Unfortunately, students face the common problem of accommodation regardless of where they move to. For a young student who is yet to fully grasp the prejudice behind such problems, this can be quite deleterious. As the people of a nation that is still developing, this is a big problem. We need to take notice and address the following student accommodation problems to try our best to eliminate them as much as possible.
Stigma
One of the biggest, if not the biggest, student accommodation problems is the stigma that students are ’Troublesome’. Landlords, neighbors, teachers; in everyone’s eyes, they have a tendency to be rebellious and cause trouble for others. Many adults use this justification to reject student tenant outright. While there’s sure to be some bad apples in the bunch, this logic shouldn’t be used to throw out everything. If a student is lucky enough to find a place to live off-campus, they have to be on their tip-toes. Anything they do that is even an inch from being ideal in the eyes of landlords and neighbors, they can expect to be prosecuted and listen to an earful. As a popular saying among students goes, “A bachelor comes with a thousand problems”.
Housing Availability
Finding student accommodation is a big problem. How big you ask? If there are a hundred flats for rent in Dhaka, no more than two or three are available for students. As mentioned beforehand, most people view student tenants as more trouble than they are worth. Proximity is one of the major factors that students need to keep in mind when searching for accommodation. So that means living in an area that is close to their educational institution. But since many landlords rather not have students live in their property, they have to find accommodation wherever they can. This leads to students finding home miles away from their ideal location and having to spend hours commuting.
Restriction of Facilities
A common problem that students face after moving into a place is the severe restriction of facilities. Restrictions such as locking the main gate of the building after a certain time, denying access to roof or restrictions on playing music on speakers are almost universal. While they may not seem very bothersome at first, these restrictions, and many others, soon become a major issue. They are one of the silent student accommodation problems that people don’t usually consider at first. But once these restrictions pile up and reach a boiling point, many students are forced to move out.
Repairs
Every tenant expects to have the support of their landlord if something in the flat breaks or has problems. Unless specified beforehand, the landlord takes on the responsibility of repairing items such as the sink, tiles, toilet etc. But in the case of students as tenants, many landlords refuse to help out and instead blame the students. According to them, it is the fault of the students and they should reprimand the landlord for this; which in most cases, the students living there do. Still, they will get an earful from people. Another common practice for landlords when renting out is to repair and fix the flat before tenants move in. However, many landlords would forego such repair if they are renting out to students.
On-Campus Housing
Last, but certainly not the least, students have a very limited number of on-campus housing option. Only the public universities have this type of student accommodation, but not all. Even then, the number of available seats are very few, usually just enough to accommodate only 40-50% of the students. This leads to common student housing problems as they need to find off-campus housing. The case is worst for private university students, who don’t even have the option of on-campus housing. Sufficient student housing provided by the educational institutes would allow them to avoid such prosecution as well as reduce cost.
Today’s students will be our future leaders and trendsetters. So if you cannot fix the numerous student accommodation problems that plague them, we are setting our future back. It is time to change how we perceive students and let go of the stigma they are not entitled to.
