Farook Ahmed :
Bangladesh is home to 79 private universities which produce annually more or less one hundred thousand graduates and post-graduates degree holders. The government has enacted private university acts to establish such institutions and regulate them so that these private universities maintain at least optimum level of standard to justify their names as the highest seats of learning. A peep into most of the private universities will invariably unfold before our eyes spine-chilling decadence in the level of education being imparted to the students. Out of 79 private universities, many of them do not have their own mandatory campuses to be built exclusively on their own land.
On top of it, many private universities have not been given permission to set up branch campus. If we take a tour around Dhaka city, we will see each and every private university has at least four to five branch campuses spread over the city. All these illegal branch campuses have been established in hired residential buildings which are structurally incapable of providing the must-have academic facilities and ambience. Students are huddled in small class rooms like livestock. Some branch campuses have been erected upon beauty parlor, barber shop, restaurant and departmental stores. The UGC which is the regulatory body of all universities willfully and perhaps indulgently turns blind eyes to such grave contravention of private university acts.
Indifference and laxity of the UGC has emboldened the owners of private universities to be defiant and degrade the standard of our higher education to the lowest rung. We can hardly say that private universities are providing our students quality education for what it is worth. A cross-section of private university students have grudgingly told us that they are getting flawed education. Our survey reveals that the first and foremost aims of the owners of private universities are to line their deep pockets by any means. One student has aptly compared his private university to a brass pitcher. According to him, the outer look of a brass pitcher is very catchy but it is hollow inside. Can we imagine what our boys and girls will learn in the deep hollowness of these private universities? We have found that 51 universities do not have spacious class rooms, modern labs, teaching gadgets and academic atmosphere. A student of a private university has to pay huge money as tuition fees but in return the education that he or she receives is totally sub-standard and useless.
A student buys entirely valueless education with the hard-earned money of his parents. When asked about his future hope a student said that all his hopes and dreams were dashed on the floor of his university just after a few days of his admission. Most private universities do not employ qualified and competent teachers rather they purposefully engage incompetent faculties to earn more and spend less. Our higher education is being devalued at the hands of these cack-handed pedagogues. Steady maintenance of standard of higher education entirely hinges upon the proficient and adroit teachers. Dhaka University and other public universities are regarded as the highest seats of higher learning because of their huge brigade of competent and capable teachers. Private universities like North-South, AIUB, and BRAC have been ranked amongst the top ten universities of the country. These three private universities have earned name and fame because they have been able to uphold the optimum standards of higher education through their galaxy of first-rate teachers.
Private universities are brazenly desperate to increase the number of their enrolment and they are equally nonchalant in upgrading the infrastructural facilities and maintaining the benchmark of higher education. These universities hold out sky-high hopes and seductive promises to the admission seeking students. Cheap lap-tops, reduction or waiver of tuition fees, stipends and sure-fire placements in the job markets are routinely offered to entice students. Innocent and credulous students swallow their baits only to be disillusioned later.
Even a few private universities secretly assure their students to be favored with unmerited A+ marks in all their examinations. This they do with ulterior motive to retain the already admitted students and use them as decoy-duck to catch new ones. Many students told us that if they can bring in new students, they are given Tk.1000-1500 per pupil. This unethical monetary offer lures old students into spending their academic times in hectic search for new students. The owners of Private universities always remain hungry for more and more students and they are ready to go to any length to swell the number of their prey. The rots of private universities have already gone deep. The government must come forward to stymieing the nosedive of our higher education by enacting new laws to regulate and control the activities of private universities. We propose that all teachers of private universities will be appointed by independent committees to be constituted by the ministry of education. Bank accounts of all private universities must have one signatory from government side. In addition, government appointed audit teams will examine and scrutinize all financial transactions twice in a year. Dhaka University may be entrusted with the task of preparing the syllabi for all private universities. Government’s agents and representatives of noted public universities should make regular quarterly inspection of all private universities. The UGC should be armed with more legal power to keep the activities of private universities on tight leash. We believe the above measures, if implemented, will invariably enhance the image of our private universities.
(The writer is ex DIG of Bangladesh Police).
