For the last few weeks, a number of universities are boiling with student agitation. The reasons of students’ protest are numerous: from arbitrary expulsion by the administration, allegation of misappropriation of budget to cruel killing of student by the fellow students. This scinerio is not pleasant anyway.
For the last few years it has become a burning question in the academic arena as to why Bangladeshi universities are consistently failing to represent in the regional rankings, let alone the global rankings.
Recent heartending killing of Abrar Fahad, a BUET (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology) student by his fellow stundents for expressing his opinion regarding a India-Bangladesh relation has sparked student protest which ultimately led to prohibition of student politics in the said university. The issue has become a burning national issue.
Abrar Fahad was killed by torture by some other students. This cruel fact raised a serious question regarding the academic environment in Bangladeshi universities. Are the universities of Bangladesh capable of producing the manpowers required for building a nation?
No doubt in the fact that the fate of a nation go with its universities. If universities can upgrade the academic environment, it will bring more and more qualified persons to build the future of a country. And if the universities go downwards, there is no scope for a nation to go upwards.
In this context, time has come to reexamine and reassess the universities and their academic environment. There are almost a hundred private universities in Bangladesh run by private initiative. There is a serious question mark on most of the private universities as to their quality of teaching. Now we would rather see the public funded universities.
The number of public funded universities are 46. Among them, Dhaka University is going to celebrate its first century of glory in 2021. Even such a rich university which has shaped the history of the nation faces heavy criticism due to its failure to maintain proper academic environment. Public universities are solely funded by the government and they can hardly attract any remarkable sponsor from corporations or private bodies, as the private sector of the country is itself struggling to survive.
All those public universities are autonomous in black and white. But their autonomous character is seriously questionable. After the brutal killing of Abrar Fahad, the Vice Chancellor of BUET has expressed his powerlessness that he has to ‘convince’ the government for everything. This statement of Vice-Chancellor of BUET poses serious concern regarding the autonomoy of public universities.
আমার ব্লগ: কাওসার তাহমীদ 