Sudden and whimsical decisions without any consultations whatsoever were the hallmark of the ousted autocratic regime that ruled the country for over 15 years. Take for example, the 'daylight saving time' that was introduced all of a sudden in June 2009 without any public debate or discussion. But the Hasina government was compelled to revoke that decision the very next year after its futility became crystal-clear to everyone. But by then, the countrymen had to suffer a lot owing to a totally unjustified decision taken by the fallen autocrat. Even a survey of our neighbouring countries in South Asia (none of which employ daylight saving time) should have been enough for her to discard that myopic and hugely unpopular move. But she did not budge an inch for almost one year before giving in. Similar dictatorial decisions were taken when the Dhaka City Corporation was unnecessarily bifurcated into two entities in December 2011 only to benefit her party people, and then the seven leading colleges of Dhaka city were unjustifiably brought under the control of Dhaka University from that of National University in 2017, apparently to benefit her students front prior to the massively rigged parliamentary election of 2018.
Let us now have a look at the National University of Bangladesh (NUB), which was the affiliating university of those seven Dhaka-based colleges up to the year 2017. NUB was established in 1992 at Gazipur of Dhaka division by the then BNP government through an Act of Parliament. It may be recalled that the fallen autocrat was all along hostile towards the concept of both the National University and Open University after she came to power for the first time in 1996, as both these universities were set up during BNP rule. In fact, she even tried to dismantle the NUB several times by reverting to the previous arrangement during both her tenures. Her irrational hatred for political opponents was also exemplified by her directive to subordinates to call her 'sir', as her predecessor Begum Khaleda Zia used to be addressed as 'madam' by civil cum military bureaucrats. The deposed autocrat even extended this arrangement throughout the civil service, where female superiors are addressed as 'sir' even today. This was quite unprecedented, as female political leaders are never called 'sir' anywhere in the world because the English language does not permit it. The Oxford English dictionary clearly stipulates that 'sir' is a polite form of address or reference to a man - not woman.
Now coming back to our topic, the NUB was envisaged to be an affiliating university for imparting graduate and post-graduate education through affiliated colleges and institutions across the country. Before that, these colleges were mostly under the jurisdiction of the Department of Secondary and Higher Education under the Ministry of Education, with some affiliated to public universities like Dhaka, Chittagong, and Rajshahi. The NUB has currently 2,257 affiliated colleges and institutions, which are mainly supervised by 6 decentralised centres of NUB at divisional level, viz. Dhaka, Chattogram, Rasjhahi, Khulna, Barishal, and Sylhet. At present, about 3.43 million students are studying in 555 government colleges, 1361 non-government colleges, and 341 other institutions affiliated to NUB. It may surprise many that it is currently the second biggest university in the world in terms of student enrolment.
The main tasks of affiliating universities are academic control, setting curricula, imparting training to teachers, and holding examinations of students enrolled in affiliated institutions including colleges. In other respects, including that of human resource management and infrastructure development, these institutions function quite independently. For example, the teachers of government colleges come from the BCS-Education cadre controlled by the Ministry of Education, while the budgetary allocations for these colleges are made by the Department of Secondary and Higher Education under the Ministry of Education.
Now, if the track records of the seven colleges are reviewed following their affiliation to Dhaka University, it becomes obvious that their circumstances have not improved compared to the period when they were affiliated to NUB from 1992 to 2017. One of the main reasons for this has been the lack of manpower, logistics, and infrastructure at Dhaka University for looking after the functioning of these colleges. There has also been the issue of standard and quality of education provided at these colleges by BCS-Education teachers, as the quality of teachers at Dhaka University are undoubtedly better, which in turn can translate into poorer grading for the college students. Besides, the college students may also have been suffering from inferiority complex vis-à-vis their university peers, who consider themselves to be academically superior.
Interestingly, the country's 9 boards of intermediate and secondary education (alongside the technical and madrasa education boards) stationed at divisional headquarters play a role similar to the NUB up to higher secondary level. They decide on the curricula, and organize examinations for their affiliated institutions at the secondary and higher secondary levels. This decentralised approach has proved to be quite efficient and effective for a long time despite the huge number of affiliated institutions. A similar decentralised approach can be adopted in case of NUB through establishment of separate national universities at the divisional headquarters. Initially, the existing set-up of the NUB at divisional headquarters can be upgraded into National University of Dhaka, Chattogram, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barishal, and Sylhet respectively. The seven Dhaka-based colleges can then be brought under the jurisdiction of Dhaka National University, just as demanded by the students. Later, if needed and found appropriate, separate national universities can also be set up at the divisional headquarters of Rangpur and Mymensingh. The performances of these universities are bound to improve compared to NUB due to lesser load and better digitalisation.
Procrastination and delay in decision-making cannot augur well for any of the stakeholders involved in this dispute. Instead of generating frenzy among students for establishing separate universities exclusively for important colleges at various parts of the country, it will be better if the government utilises the infrastructure at its disposal without wasting any time.
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