#Title

Reinventing higher education in Bangladesh
Towards a new paradigm
Around the world in 999 words
There is no doubt that Bangladesh suffers from the trap of low learning, and a key element of this is the lack of qualified teachers. This vicious cycle can only be broken by bold and innovative policy intervention, with particular focus on teaching and research. Here, I would like to argue that it is not possible to change the ground reality of political control over our education system. What is essential to radically transform it is to build a second incentive structure that values knowledge generation for those who would follow the path of research, teaching and publications or take up initiatives to update curriculum and build a closer partnership between university and industry.
This new policy would require huge research funds, building of an international standard library, maximum use of our teaching potential, horizontal partnerships among different national agencies, effective coordination, local-global partnerships and the extensive use of digital technology. It is important to build a broad partnership among four key stakeholders—the Ministry of Education, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the National University and the University of Dhaka (DU). It can only be ensured by the Prime Minister’s Office through an adviser who has high academic excellence. After that, the most important task is to conduct a nationwide search for potential teachers who remain unutilised or underutilised. One source is a pool of retired professors (in USA, professors can continue for as long as they can teach) or members of the civil service, many of whom are able to do high quality research or teaching. A simple criterion of Google Scholar citations, or publications in its absence, should be adopted for selecting academics to undertake higher level teaching or research. However, one should remember that the US automotive and energy company Tesla does not even demand a diploma as a job requirement.
The diaspora scholars who have returned to Bangladesh constitute the second source. Here lies the key role of the UGC in maintaining a register of scholars and actively searching for those who are conducting research or publishing academic works along with their Google Scholar citations. A third source can be Bangladeshi scholars living abroad or renowned foreign scholars who will provide distance learning or may be brought to Bangladeshi universities through suitable pay. The UGC should encourage new and regional universities to hire retired professors on a contractual basis to teach at the Masters level if they do not have professors. The National University should also allow colleges to hire serving or retired university professors to teach at the Masters level; students may be charged if the universities or colleges do not have adequate funds.
The most vital aspect of this policy is to develop postgraduate education facilities at three levels at the University of Dhaka—a full-time postgraduate diploma, and M.Phil. and PhD programmes for college teachers, in particular. It should be a collaborative programme jointly conducted with the University of Dhaka and foreign universities of high reputation. The external experts could supervise through Skype or other digital platforms from abroad and should be suitably remunerated for it. The PhD students should be allowed to stay one or more semesters at foreign universities for course work or library work. This will be more cost effective and useful than wasting money on training college teachers abroad, which may serve little purpose in the end. Besides, it is equally important that college teachers should be promoted not on the basis of seniority but on their academic competence . The government should change the rules of promotion for college teachers so that there is incentive to pursue higher degrees and research at the college level.
The long term vision should embrace establishing different schools of advanced research like the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) or the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) within the next ten years at DU and gradually at other universities. All these, of course, raise the question of finance. We need to build up partnerships with donors, the government of Bangladesh and the private sector. The current World Bank projects can be reshaped to suit our national policy more. It would be in the interest of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) if we have a top quality business school geared to the needs of the garments industry so that we don’t have to hire senior administrative staff from abroad, or for our growing pharmaceutical industries to build a school of pharmacy for developing new or cheaper drugs. The fund for schools of liberal arts and social sciences may come from the tuition fees (at market rate) from M.Phil. and PhD students, or can be paid out as scholarships to college teachers by the National University, which has huge financial resources. Research students should be allowed to borrow money from banks without interest for higher education as well, and the interest should be paid from the bank’s CSR fund. Additional funds can be raised from a small levy on luxury cars, foreign travels etc. Most vitally, this fund is also necessary to build a proper library, support academic research and establish an advanced school of artificial intelligence and robotics in partnership with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and the best universities of India, China and South Korea. The University of Peking, which is 24th in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking of 2020, has proven that world class universities can be built in decades. It will not be difficult to transform the University of Dhaka into a leading university of Asia in a couple of decades. The adoption of a new paradigm of higher education for the country would be the most befitting way to celebrate the Centenary of the University of Dhaka. The Honourable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is also an alumnus of DU, has an innovative vision of and an interest in higher education. The Centenary and the 50 Year Anniversary of the Independence of Bangladesh offers her a unique occasion to launch a new strategy of higher education to reshape the destiny of the nation.
S Aminul Islam is Honorary Professor in the
Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka.
PHOTO: COLLECTED
The following anecdote I have narrated before, but it merits repetition for sheer context.
This happened many moons before a Twitter happy businessperson decided to take up politics as a trivial engagement to the amusement of the world. A mob was apparently beating a man at some distance from his friends. Bruised, he returned to his friends, who were not of any help except for watching the one-sided pounding. Concerned however, they asked him about the engagement. “Yeah, they slapped me and kicked me, bad mouthed as well,” he said, “But, they could not take away my ijjat (read dignity)”.
Now if a half-impeached Twitter happy president in a unique hire-and-fire regime, beaten politically, battered by the media, and buoyed only by partisanship, believes his prestige has been elevated to the heights where reindeers sprint through snowflakes, he must be living in Santa Claus’ paradise.
Bullies are essentially cowards, criminals who flex their muscle by the power of the mob. Lynching is one of their hallmarks, grisly bloodthirsty moments of irrational frenzy. Hated by all and sundry, mostly in silent disapproval that is widely misunderstood as tacit support, particularly by the intimidating tormentors. People fume in muted anger towards the morally weak politicians, who ride on the bullock cart of the majority. The barrage bursts forth, the valve broken by a spark as remote as that emanating from counting the number of hens that crossed the border.
You can “put in” differing schools of thought, or perhaps safer not to. Nevertheless, one needs to have access to the Arctic polar region in order to castigate the opposing ice hockey team to extreme cold treatment. Powers-that-be fear that activists are picking up democratic heat to threaten (read thaw) the recurring reigns of rule abhorred for various reasons; boredom from the same commanding face is perhaps foremost. Power, as such, is transitory—the powerful forget.
The different kid on the block loves playing with big and powerful toys, and showing off in the air. He has not hurt anybody yet, but the world is petrified. At home, he is supposedly loved by all. Those who don’t, do not exist for long. Only a bomb exploding at his front door will tell us whether this bully is a coward within or a genuine patriot. In the meantime, he is enjoying his time as a man feared and respected for his volatile idiosyncrasies. Our world needs them all, in all shapes and sizes.
How many lives is a man’s life worth? Depends. If you are a human being, it is one is to one. If you have ruled over a country by familial inheritance and naturally turned into a despot, local and foreign shelling on civilians could kill thousands to keep you alive. Superpowers have also seemingly matured to avoid each other in real life encounters. If a big cat claims a territory in selfishly supporting a dictator, the other big cats turn their tail with a “meow”. Death of the innocent is a matter of statistics for the power hungry.
For no fault of theirs, convicted by birth and by inequitable distribution of wealth, thousands believe that the gap between poverty and prosperity is only a body of water. The turbulence of the sea appears to them as dancing angels singing a welcoming hymn. They dare venture on the hazardous journey because some have made it to the Land of Dreams across the Mediterranean. Hundred others have not, but this is not to be whispered even as the family boards the crowded rickety boat. Travelling children have been washed ashore, face down, smiling.
Religion, as a warring tool, has remained a contemporary commodity, updated through the ages. Villages can be plundered, women can be raped, men can be slaughtered, and hundreds of schoolgirls can be kidnapped en masse and violated, in the excuse of establishing a broader cult based on the corrupt interpretation of divine inspiration. No man’s land is their sanctuary, and the vicinity their happy hunting grounds.
Autocratic leaders shamelessly embrace the brutal game of killing as their lease of life. Many forget that the “life is temporary” rule applies to the powerful and the defenceless, the rich and the poor, the black and the white; and the yellow and brown refugees build up on the more humane side of international borders. Persecution of minorities take place when considered a threat or a nuisance by the over-religious or the atheists, the influential and the affluent. Peace is trampled at the altar of political, religious and communal ego.
There are oppressors who want to fight the war of others, uninvited. A few actually do. They take the war, the killings, and the torture to faraway lands to protect their own citizens. They have succeeded gloriously and regally for centuries. If victims raise their voice, economic sanctions are in order. If those preyed upon show their claws, they are accused of initiating the conflict. When will the conscientious among them rise to stop the intimidation?
People are on the streets all over the world. There are not enough streets for all the oppressed and exploited people. Soon they may take over rivers and canals, airports and shopping malls. They are no longer content to be mere pedestrians or boatpeople. They are holding placards of discontent from Hong Kong to Lebanon, from India to Venezuela, from France to Iraq. They are differently, and uniquely, demanding franchise, freedom and food peacefully, but provocation has sadly led to violence.
There are millions languishing in (supposed) silence in concentration and refugee camps, in their own homes. No difference between them. Many are innocent, jailed, persecuted or condemned for years on. Their screams do not reach the outside world, who they consider unsympathetic and insensitive. Sworn enemies have walked over them to shake hands for selfish ends.
Children are (not) growing up, and many remain separated from their parents, without education or a playground, and most importantly love. Still in characteristic innocence, they smile from behind walls and barbed wire. They will not forgive us. Call 999.
Dr Nizamuddin Ahmed is a practising Architect at BashaBari Ltd., a Commonwealth Scholar and a Fellow, a Baden-Powell Fellow Scout Leader, and a Major Donor Rotarian.
Religion, as a warring tool, has remained a contemporary commodity, updated through the ages. Villages can be plundered, women can be raped, men can be slaughtered, and hundreds of schoolgirls can be kidnapped en masse and violated, in the excuse of establishing a broader cult based on the corrupt interpretation of divine inspiration.
CROSSWORD BY THOMAS JOSEPH
ON THIS DAY
IN HISTORY
ACROSS
1 Rabbits’ kin
6 Summit goals
11 Texas landmark
12 Parts of hearts
13 Nutritious drink
15 Piano part
16 Industrious insect
17 Industrious insect
18 Small porch
20 Bulgaria’s capital
23 Ford’s predecessor
27 Baseball’s Rodriguez
28 “In – veritas”
29 Principle
31 Imitate a UFO
32 Metal man
34 Spots on TV
37 Shoe shade
38 Relaxing spot
41 Bonbon type
44 Figure of speech
45 Door part
46 Shorebirds
47 Poet Nash
DOWN
1 Bad writer
2 Lotion additive
3 Risque
4 Punk rock offshoot
5 Bach work
6 Best Picture of 1970
7 Money machine
8 Tot’s spot
9 Floor piece
10 Benefit
14 25-Down, for Juan
18 Philly cager
19 Turning point
20 Plopped down
21 Flamenco cheer
22 Swamp
24 14, in old
Rome
25 Binary digit
26 Negative link
30 Tribe symbols
31 Top dog
33 Saloon
34 Somewhat
35 Slacker
address
36 Agitate
38 Transmit
39 Book unit
40 Prayer finish
42 Cargo amount
43 Equip
The Paris accord ending the Vietnam War, America’s longest war to that time, was signed this day in 1973, providing for an exchange of prisoners and for the unilateral withdrawal of US forces from South Vietnam.
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