Professor Amirul Islam Chowdhury
President, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh :
(From previous issue)
But as elsewhere, enormous differences in access and affordability continue to make educational opportunities an increasingly unequal affair. Even in the USA access is very much structured by socioeconomic status. Indeed there is no nation in the world, excepting perhaps in Cuba that is anywhere near to achieving equality of opportunity, a mythical idea imported globally by a misunderstanding of the USA educational system.
It may be mentioned here that traditionally higher education is elitist and by nature creates inequality in the society.
Higher Education or for that matter
All levels of Education as Business
A good deal what we have discussed so far can be summarized as: “It is not merely true that globalization is everywhere making higher education as Business. One should remember-it is run usually as poorly run business. He further added that the American System–often taken as the model to be realized. It is true that American system has many virtues, they also display’ luxury of inefficiency’. It is a common complain that teachers who run the system are often not given tenure. He concludes that the American model of higher education surely has much in its favour, but globalization has produced anxiety about its future in part because it is forcing governments and faculty to confront some serious yet largely unacknowledged problems” (Manicas 2002).
Should Higher Education continue as a big Business?
The relevant Act with regard to Higher Education desires philanthropist to be involved in establishing Private University. We find in most cases it is not so. This way or that way trustees take advantage of the situation. This is not the case for all the private universities. There are trustees who do not take away a single penny from the institutions they belong.
UGC should be very careful giving permission to establish any private university. All trustees should not be related to each other by blood or by marital connection. This takes away the autonomy of faculty even in academic matters. Sitting allowance needs to me limited to a reasonable level.
Section III : Research
The most essential part of the university is to search for new knowledge, especially more relevant in present knowledge economy. It has been a ‘fundamental part’ of modem university (Winrock 1993). History of university research tells us that “in the first two decades of 20th century, the new universities in the USA established the current globally taken for granted idea of social science disciplines that had as a goal of research the solution of social problems” (Manic as 1987). However, the other research was mostly done for various enterprises for the commercialization of their products. Taken together these two streams of research became the main activities and a good source of fund-raising efforts. These efforts for fund raising brought down Universities from Ivory Tower to hard hit reality to use any source for funds.
Write about Bangladesh research, researcher and projects need fund which are very difficult to procure in most of the universities in Bangladesh. Each year the budget allocated for research is very scanty. However, teachers on their own effort and initiative and academic connection carry research in most of the universities. In private universities it is very difficult for teachers to do research after meeting heavy load of teaching. It can be noticed that most of the publications of leading publishing house do belong to the research outputs of university teachers. Some of the private universities also have good international linkage both for fund and also academic. I know a private university has won a international fund source even by competing with a leading government university.
Research on Higher Education
It is very difficult to find quality research papers on higher education and particularly on university education. Professor Muzaffer Ahmed has produced some important writings on higher education. Professor Ahmed published two articles, one of which inquired into different aspects of financing, including quality and cost of education in Bangladesh, including higher education (CPD 1995). In another seminar paper, he looked into the overall state of financing of education in Bangladesh with a theoretical base. He has also made use of findings from other countries (Ahmed 1998). Professor Siddiqui’s (1997) book on higher education, Visions and Revisions Higher Education in Bangladesh 1947-92 is the first comprehensive study of higher education in Bangladesh. He deals with the historical perspectives of structural changes in higher education. He looks into the common areas of higher education such as access and choice, evaluation of assessment, governance, etc. He also makes several suggestions to improve the existing situation. Siddiqui has published another collection of articles on different aspects of higher education (Siddiqui 2000). Al Muti’s collection of articles on education also includes a small section on the historical growth of higher education Bangladesh since the inception of Dhaka University (Al-Muti 1996). In a newspaper article, Mahbub brought out the social and economic perspectives of private universities in Bangladesh from a Marxist’s point of view (Huq 1997). Tipu and Asadullah (1999) has studied the comparative costs of public and private universities. A seminar paper “Higher Education in Bangladesh:
Role of Private Universities in Bangladesh” by the author of the present paper also discusses the different aspects of private universities in Bangladesh including the history of the establishment of private universities. In another article, Chowdhury has discussed the financing of universities education and has showed that over the years universities are getting comparatively less money from the government (Chowdhury 1999). In a recent seminar paper, he has discussed the state of governance, quality of education and expectation of people from the private universities (Chowdhury 2001). The former education minister ASHK Sadek has also published a selection of lectures and interviews on different aspects of education. Though this collection does not include any particular essays on university or higher education, yet it helps one to understand the mind set of the minister and government about higher education (Sadek 1999). Ahmed’s (2000 UPL) has also made an empirical study of the quality of education and the prevalence of campus violence in two selected Universities. The study discusses elaborately the reasons for campus violence. He finds that these two issues ‘are in fact intricately interrelated’. His study also suggests several steps towards removing campus violence. The World Bank has published Bangladesh Education Section Review in three volumes. This publication is the outcome of research and a series of discussions on different levels of education in Bangladesh (WB 2000). Three important publications (WB 1993, WB 1994 and IBRD/ WB 2000) on higher education in the country have discussed its growth, role and future direction. The chairman of UGC in its annual seminar has presented a thoughtful paper on higher education. The paper describes the present situation of higher education and identifies macro and micro problems of higher education and suggests ways and means to face them (Huq 2001).
(To be continued)
