Ranking of Bangladeshi universities

London-based The Times Higher Education (THE) magazine published the list of top 1,000 universities in the world but none of the Bangladeshi universities found their names within 1000. The World University Ranking-2020, which was published on September 11, 2019, mentioned that only Dhaka University was there in the list of 1,396 universities. In the Asia University Rankings, published in May, no Bangladeshi institution was placed among more than 350 best colleges and universities. This ranking is based on teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry outcome. It is unfortunate that our universities are lagging behind global standards.

However, if such ranking of the universities were made by the University Grants Commission (UGC), a competitive environment would have been created by this time. In that case, a common university admission test could also have been introduced, if it is considered suitable. The students should be provided with opportunity to choose the best institute to compete globally. The government should support research and creative activities for improving quality of education. The UGC submits an annual report to the President every year evaluating performance of all universities but do not rank the universities based on their performance. The way the universities elsewhere are ranked, the UGC should rank the universities and publish reports focusing on research and publication, teacher-student ratio, budget per student, infrastructure facility, technological update, library facility etc. We urge the government to initiate university ranking in Bangladesh through UGC to help improve global ranking of our universities.

Md. Zillur Rahaman

Gandaria, Dhaka