Gulam Rabbani :
Although the private universities get approval as a non-profit organization under the law, most private universities are accused of bagging huge amount of profit that basically comes from the tuition fees paid by the students.
High officials specially the members of the board of trustee of many of the private universities are amassing huge amount of wealth by this way. For that reason, the most university authorities are not submitting the annual audit report of the university to the University Grants Commission (UGC), sources said.
There are allegations that most of the universities’ finance committees do not hold any meetings. They don’t have any treasurer. If there is any treasurer, in most cases, he is appointed at the owners’ choice.
Board of Trustees members are embezzling money from the general fund of the university without heeding the law. There are also allegations that they are taking loans from banks against the funds saved in the name of the university by forging fake documents and signatures.
Each university has a total of 12 syndicate members in eight categories. A syndicate member is taking honorarium of up to Tk 3.5 lakh per head for attending the meetings. They even arrange syndicate meetings abroad to fulfill their intention of pleasure trips.
The members of the board of trustees are embezzling crores of money every year in the name of honorium of various meetings. Irregularities and corruption are also going on in purchasing different items of the universities.The matter comes into the fore after a High Court bench order passed recently sending four members of the board of trustees of the North South University, a leading private university of the country, under the police custody rejecting their anticipatory bail petition in a corruption case.
They were made accused in a corruption case filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission on May 5 in 2022 with the ACC’s integrated office in Dhaka on charge of misappropriation of Tk 3.03 billion during purchasing land for the institution.
Authorities specially the University Grants Commission (UGC) are relaxed to investigate the allegations of financial and administrative irregularities of not only the private universities, but also the public universities.
However, Professor Dr Biswajit Chanda, a member of the University Grant Commission (UGC) who is on charge of the private universities, said, “As per the
law the private universities’ authorities are obliged to submit their financial statements to the University Grant Commission within September 30 every year. But most of the universities are not doing so. But recently we have taken strict decision so that the private university authorities submit their financial statements in time.”
We are forming bodies to investigate the allegations of financial irregularities those we are receiving in different time, also said the UGC member.
“Many universities have no Vice-Chancellors, many have no Treasurers. We are taking action against the universities those are not fulfilling the conditions,” Professor Biswajit Chanda also said.
Private universities have been expanded in the country over the past 30 years since the enactment of the Private University Act in 1992, but most of them have been operating academic activities flouting rules and regulations in the absence of appropriate punitive action by the government.
People concerned say some of these universities have little regard for the law and are being run as per the whims of their authorities.
There are 108 private universities with more than 3.5 lakh students in the country. Of them, 94 universities are in operation, including two foreign universities.
For instance, it is mandatory for private universities to obtain a permanent certificate from the government within 12 years of starting operations. But only seven of 51 universities that were established before 2008 have secured the documentation by fulfilling all conditions, including permanent campuses.
Besides, most of the private universities are reluctant to even submit their annual audit reports to the authorities concerned.
Only 11 universities have all the required top officials. Of the rest, 73 have vice-chancellors, 22 have pro-vice-chancellors, and 54 have treasurers, according to the 47th annual report of the University Grants Commission published last year.
Private universities charge high fees from students as the UGC is yet to fix the amount of all kinds of fees.
