Government job seekers and students brought out a cycle procession in the capital yesterday  to press home their five-point demand, including reducing the allocation of quota privileges to 10 percent from the current 56 percent.

To realise their demands, around 100 aspirants started the procession around 10:00am from the base of Raju memorial sculpture at the Teachers Student Centre (TSC) on Dhaka University (DU) campus.

The procession paraded through different educational institutes in the capital including Jagannath University, Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and Eden College, and ended at central library of DU.

Other demands of the job seekers include recruiting job seekers to vacant posts on the basis of merit if suitable candidates are not found under the quota system, preventing special recruitment tests for candidates falling under the quotas, and ensuring unified age for all job seekers.

Talking to The Daily Star, Ali Akkas, a job expectant, said, “We have been demanding that the government stop the discrimination in recruitment process caused by the existing quota system. But a faction is getting us wrong.”

“We do not demand scrapping of freedom fighters quota, instead our demand is to reduce the existing quotas to a tolerable level,” he added.

Terming the quota system "disproportionate", Hasan Al Mamun, another job seeker, said, “Many qualified aspirants are not getting their desired jobs as more than half of the posts in different government jobs are reserved for the quota holders.”

“… the quota system is discriminatory,” he added.

Currently, only 44 percent job seekers are recruited on the basis of merit. The remaining 56 percent candidates are recruited on the basis of privileges under various quotas.

Under the banner of "Bangladesh Shadharan Chhatra Odhikar Sangrakkhan Parishad", students and government job aspirants had been protesting against the quota system in Dhaka and elsewhere. On February 17, jobseekers held a demonstration on the DU campus. The anti-quota protestors also staged demonstrations on February 26 and March 4 in different colleges and universities across the country.

On March 4, the platform declared that it would stage a nationwide demonstration on Wednesday [March 14].