Professor Amirul Islam Chowdhury
President, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh :
This lecture highlights the current situation in Bangladesh Universities. It also tries to investigate into the impact of Globalization both in the world at large and also in Bangladesh. It tries to assess the impact of privatization of higher education in Bangladesh.
This lecture draws mainly from published sources both within Bangladesh, and other countries mainly from India, UK (Cambridge and Oxford) and USA. 1 have drawn freely from four articles that I wrote on Private university education. I have tried to add my experience in North South University as a teacher and also as faculty administrator. I am currently teaching in United International University. I have also taught several semesters in BRACU. Besides these, I have been teaching and doing research since 1964. I have taught in Jahangirnagar University since its inception in 1970. Experience that. I gathered are the main inputs for this lecture that I am going to deliver to day.
The lecture is broadly divided into six broad sections. First section includes popular misconceptions about higher education; An Age old Concern about higher education Quality; Quality Assurance Explained; Higher education is central to all types of Development; Actors in Higher Education; Youth, University and Democracy;
The Section II, deals with Globalization, Fast Growth of Higher Education; Sources of funds; Higher education as business; Should higher education as big business?; sources of funds. The Section III, discusses areas such as research, new techniques of teaching and its impact; Management of Education and Markets. The Section IV, This section tries to highlights some current problems of leading in higher education with regard to medium of instruction–poor English and weak knowledge in mathematics; Teaching the History of Bangladesh, Accreditation Council Act and Conclusion.
Popular misconceptions about Higher Education: Professor Bligh’s neighbor told him about his idea (misconception) of University: Professor Bligh calls ‘Misconceptions. These run as below:
University teacher enjoy long holiday, one job not two (second one is research), higher education is like school, students are irresponsible libertines, it is all theory, not practical, higher education sponges on the taxpayer, only students and their parents benefit from higher education (Bligh, D 1990). The author has also expressed his satisfaction that his neighbor who narrated these misconceptions; never asked him “what’s higher education really like?” An age old concern about higher education quality: I begin my lecture with Robert F Goheen’s remark, (from Princeton university which he made this remark as early as 1969) “Universities are increasingly in the news today not only because of student unrest and enlarging campus population, but also because of the role of universities as centers of teaching and research has been getting more pervasive and more critical in myriad aspects of our national life (not particularly of Bangladesh). ”
This type of concerns about higher education was also voiced by Aristotle, Socrates and even by Plato. Tilak, a well known educationist from India, opened his address in an International University Seminar, Brasila, Brazil, “Higher education systems in many developing as well as developed countries are characterized with a crisis, rather a continuing crisis, with overcrowding, inadequate staffing, deteriorating standards and quality, poor physical facilities, insufficient equipment and declining public budgets. Moreover, importantly, higher education is subject to neglect and even discrimination in public policy” (Tilak, Jandhyala B G, 2003). The latest Annual Report of Bangladesh University Grants Commission (BGUC) also expressed its dissatisfaction about the quality of education in the Universities (See annual Reports, 2013 and 2014, UGC, Dhaka).
Quality Assurance Explained: The notion of quality is hard to define precisely, “especially in the context of tertiary education where institutions have broad autonomy to decide on their own visions and missions” (WB, 2007). The same publication remarks that terms used in quality assurance are employed in a variety of ways and have different meanings in different parts of the world.
The same report provides example from US and UK. In the US, the term “accreditation” refers to a process of review and assessment of quality that result in a decision about whether or not to certify the academic standard of an institution. In the UK “accreditation” refers to a code of practice by which an institution without its own degree-awarding powers is given authority by a university or other awarding institution to offer its degrees to students meeting the requirements. In order to avoid ambiguity, the key terms used in this study are defined below in short:
Quality refers to “fitness for purpose meeting or conforming to generally accepted standard as defined by an institution;
Quality assurance is a planned and systematic review process of an institution or programs to determine whether or not acceptable standards of education, scholarship, and infrastructure are being met, maintained and enhanced;
Accreditation is a process of self-study and external quality review used in higher education to scrutinize an institution and/or its programs for quality standards and need for quality improvement. Audit is a process of review of an institution or progress to determine if its curriculum, staff, and infrastructure meet its stated aims and objectives; An academic review is a diagnostic self-assessment and evaluation of teaching, learning, research, service, and outcomes based on a detailed examination of the curricula, structure, and effectiveness of a program as well as the quality and activities of its faculty.
Licensing is a process for granting a new institution or program permission to launch its activities.
Higher education institutions (HEI) are tertiary institutions whose legal mandates allow them to award degrees.
The findings essentially represent models for quality assurance towards which the international community appears to be converging. This is also an impact of fast globalization.
Higher education is central to all types of Development: Higher education is central to economic, political, social, and development of institutions and at the core to competitiveness in an increasingly globalizing knowledge society. In the case of Bangladesh, tertiary education plays a critical capacity building for sustaining the economic growth and poverty reduction that she has gained so far. It is mentioned in one of World Bank research findings (WB 2007) indicate that expanding tertiary education may promote future technological catching up and improve a country’s ability to maximize the economic output.
“A new range of competence, such as adaptability, team work, communication skills, and the motivation for continual learning, have become critical” and has put higher education a challenge to adjust their program structures, curricula, teaching and learning methods to adapt to these new demands. In recognition of this challenge, greater attention is being focused on quality assurance as a critical factor to ensuring educational relevance” WB (Peter Materu, 2007).
Actors in Higher Education: Unless we see Higher education as a system, with other stakeholder such as firms, research institutions, earlier stages of education (SSC and HSC in case of Bangladesh), other skill providers, there will always be a disconnect (WB 2012). The same report tells us that the interactions between all these stakeholders/ actors lead to a better employment situation.
Youth, University and Democracy: Youths of every society in the past and also during the present time are being challenged and are interested to learn in freedom. This is a historic fact and we have seen how university faculty, students and civil society protected the freedom against popes, kings, and popular demagogues, and protect their libertarian mission in modern democracies.
It is strongly believed and a historical fact that only free universities can serve truth and only advancement toward the truth can satisfy the perennial quest of a traditionally confused, sad, and brave youth for clarity and bring about the kind of public good that youthful idealism has always longed for.
World has always been a place for youth. They are the trend setters. In 1968, Youths of Western World, from USA, UK, Germany and France came down on the street and protested against the then societal situation. Though the protest was staged in different big cities of the Western World. Youths of these cities had their own agendas, different in different cities. This wave of protest reached to Latin America and also to Mexico.
Herbert Merceese Studied this wave of protest from anthropological point of view. Even, Bangladesh was no exception. Dhaka University student leaders gave the leadership against the exploitation of West Pakistan Military Junta. Which is known as ‘mass uprising’ (MY Afy¨Ìvb). Messers Tofail Ahmed, Sajahan Seraj, Nur-e-Alam Siddiqui and Abur Razzak were in the front. Some of these youth leaders to-day are front line leaders in national politics.
University is a Republic of youth, teacher and civil society, where knowledge is equally shared and participate to create new knowledge. Everyone is equal partner in this effort.
Learning is not only for the students. It is also a private activity and carries a social obligation and a social responsibility and needs to be accountable to the society.
The best time of life is spent in the university. Every member of this republic should make best and sincere effort to spend this time, so that it brings benefit to the individual student and also pride for the family and of course at the end for the country.
Youth have always enjoyed university campus mixing with other students and learning from fellow students of different disciplines rather than from class room lectures. One such student a Nobel Laureate said that he learnt more from his fellow students rather than from class lectures. This is very much common rather than unusual.
(To be continued)
