Greetings from China

The prestigious TIME Asia Rankings of Universities 2015 has been published a few days ago and it was disappointing to see that none of our universities are in the top 100 list.

The highlight of this year's ranking is that Chinese universities have surpassed Japan as Asia's No.1. Some 21 Universities from the Mainland are in the top 100 followed by 19 Japanese and 9 Indian universities. China's special administrative regions have also done well, with six universities from Hong Kong and one from Macao figured in the top 50. Being an alumnus of the National University of Singapore, I am delighted to see the university has ranked second behind the University of Tokyo.

I hope Bangladeshi dailies will carry stories on this, particularly highlighting the sorry state of our higher education and what should be done to change the course. I cannot see the situation in Bangladesh changing soon in view of the politicization of teacher appointment, low budget for Research & Development (R&D), student politics, poor industry-university cooperation in terms of R&D, inadequate regulation etc. In addition, university teachers have been discriminated against severely in the latest pay scale. All these factors certainly do not augur well for higher education. I am sure education experts of the country have more wisdom to share as far as our higher/university education is concerned.

M. Shahidul Islam

Visiting Research Scholar

Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS) 577 Huan Cheng Xi Lu, Kunming City, China, 650035

shahid.imon@live.com,   imonsg@gmail.com