The university regulator, UGC, has suggested introduction of a unified academic calendar year and similar syllabus for all public and private universities so that students willing to transfer to other universities get their credit hours accordingly.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) made a set of recommendations to the President and Chancellor M Abdul Hamid recently to ensure state of art tertiary level schooling in the country.
The recommendations and observations over the higher education have also been published in UGC's latest annual report. The UGC in its observation said presently, majority of the universities including public and private ones are providing four-year bachelor degrees.
However, it identified massive dissimilarities in the academic year as some universities are following 12-month calendar year, some 6-month semester system while some others three-month semester system.
"In this situation, introduction of a unified syllabus for the similar public and private universities is a sine qua non," the regulator recommended saying that it will facilitate the students to transfer their credit hours.
The UGC also expressed its serious concern over the existing examination system at the university level that largely failed to properly evaluate the university graduates.
Besides, the regulator also identified the existing examination system as outdated. The university watchdog said there are massive dissimilarities in the existing examinations system of the universities.
"Older and reputed universities usually follow two-examiner method, where has a scope for external evaluation," it said adding that although the method is outdated, it is relatively transparent.
However, the university regulator isn't well informed about the examination methods of the country's private universities.
The UGC report said it has information that in the private universities, only the course teacher is responsible for making the question papers and evaluation of the answer scripts.
"In the private universities, an external evaluator of the answer scripts is required to ensure proper justification of the scripts," the regulator in its recommendation said.
However, Chairman of the Association of Universities of Bangladesh (AUB) Prof Md Ruhul Amin has disagreed with the regulator's suggestion of introducing similar academic syllabus for all of the public universities.
"Every public university has its own learned academic council to determine what to teach the students. All the universities must have such freedom," the professor also Vice Chancellor of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU) said.
He, however, opined to facilitate the students transferring their credit hours to the desired universities. "In this case, related universities should sign memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate the students' transfer," Professor Amin noted.
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