MOST private universities in the country have passed more than two decades of their existence but many of them failed to maintain any standard, though, they are selling significantly successful stories. The mushrooming growth of private universities in recent years in the country has been devaluing the meaning of “university” as quality of the students and the teachers, facilities and faculties, research and co-curricular activities, discrimination of knowledge and overall academic atmospheres are being seriously compromised. Some of the private universities are just signboard based institutions without having the bare minimum faculty arrangement. Private universities were established in Bangladesh with the objective of imparting quality education but the desired quality is not maintained in the absence of an accreditation council.
A national daily reported that many private universities continue to flawed the Private University Act 2010 by not moving out to permanent campuses in the time stipulated. The education provided by some private universities is of very poor standard, while some of them were simply selling certificates. Besides, allegations of financial irregularities are too frequent against them. Transparency International Bangladesh in its last year’s survey found illegal transactions in private universities at every stage – from getting approval for launching to distribution of certificates. The latest University Grants Commission (UGC) report said 39 out of 50 private universities are yet to move to their own campuses, which they were supposed to do within seven years of establishment. A total of 50 out of 68 private universities now in operation were scheduled to shift to their own campuses by 2013 but only 11 of them had shifted by now.
Private universities are blankly blamed for not doing adequate research work as in mandatory for a university. A recent UGC report says that most private universities are reluctant to carry on research work which appears to be a major hurdle facing the students in acquiring proper knowledge. The report said that 19 private universities did not spend even a single penny in research. UGC says, “The Commission hopes that for the sake of improving the quality of higher education and national development, private universities will carry out research work. We still surely pressurize the rest of the institutions to do so.”
In the backdrop of government’s failure to open enough scope of higher education in state-run universities, private university education is a ground reality in Bangladesh. But it needs more attention from the government, educationists, and the society at large. Education is considered as the weapon of changing a society for making life better — democratic, idealistic and peaceful. The much desired dream of a changed society could only be materialized if we succeed in the field of higher education as the higher education opens the doors of creativity for change.
The root cause of such fall or low standard of university education in the country, particularly in the private ones is political power play in the education arena. To buy favour from the power corridors, some shrewd persons have managed permission to open universities inter alia engage in education market and turned education a mere saleable commodity who bother least for the damages they are causing to the nation. The only way to get out of the mess is to place education – at all tiers- above politics.
