Emerging issues of higher education : Analysis of demand, problems and trends
Sunday, 2 August 2009
Fakhrul Islam
Education, as we all know, is a key to development, for a nation as well for an individual. Higher education is inevitable for development of a nation as a whole. By the term higher education, in Bangladesh we normally understand education at the tertiary level beyond the higher secondary level. It would therefore include education provided in the universities and under-graduate and post-graduate colleges.
Many scholarly essays and books and dissertations have been written in the area of knowledge, education and learning within the context of a university. The continuing debate about the role of a university is rich and revealing. For example, one educationist in his book named 'The Universities' said 'the universities were undoubtedly one of the most significant creation of medieval world. Their graduates helped to shape its thoughts to create a mode of intellectual discipline, to lay the foundation for a scientific culture, to interpret its laws and its customs and to administer its governments'. Another educationist named Robert Wolf in his book The Ideal of the University discussed four models for ideal university: the university as a sanctuary of scholarship, the university as a training camp for professions, the university as a social service centre, and the university as an assembly line for established 'men and women'.
The main function of the university is to create knowledge and to disseminate knowledge. Within the context of a university all activities in which the faculty and students engage themselves are expected to create and disseminate knowledge. The university bears the responsibility of moving the society forward by addressing the pressing problems for the society and producing the positive thinkers, business and political leaders and intelligent workers. In this age of globalisation, technological advancement and competition, there is no alternative to the creation of a knowledge-based society which is only possible through universities of very high quality.
There is a fair consensus that a system of higher education is of strategic importance in national development of any country. For this purpose expansion of higher education is a genuine claim. But in recent times what has been happening in higher education is a frustrating scene. The political and sociological forces are making a compelling demand for quantitative growth of education. These forces are less concerned about simultaneous change in traditional objectives of higher education, improvement in management and efficiency in performances.
At present there are 32 public universities in the country, with a new university having been declared by the newly elected government to be set up at Gopalganj, has also been approved, thus raising the number of public universities to 33. There are currently as many as 51 private universities in the country, most of these being very hurriedly and carelessly approved and established during the last regime. Some of these universities have already achieved fairly large student population; a few of the older ones, can claim quality. Among the functioning 30 public universities, 29 are campus based, while the National University is an affiliated university, with over 1876 colleges located all over the country, and the Bangladesh Open University, based on the Distance Learning mode also has a country-wide coverage through its Regional Resource Centres and Branches. The 29 campus-based public universities together had 153,249 students in 2008, while the NU had 855,744 and the BOU had 232,353 students. The 51 private universities had 124,267 students at that time.
Enrolment is one of the major indicators of determining demand for education. There are nearly one thousand eight hundred and seventy six (1876) degree colleges in the country. A large number of students of these colleges study humanities or liberal arts subjects. Data from UGC Annual Report source shows that nearly 64% of the students appearing in degree examination in 2008 were from arts and humanities group. Only a small number of 13% and 18% appeared in science and commerce subjects respectively. In Bangladesh Agricultural University 3,458 students were enrolled in the session of 2007-2008 and the largest number of them were in the faculty of agriculture. In this university only 21.35% of students were female and out of this number many of them were enrolled in the faculty of agriculture.
There are many problems in higher education in Bangladesh. Here I will touch upon some of the major and areas :
Access: The growth of enrolment at the secondary level and large number of outputs from HSC examination put a pressure for admission in the higher educational institutions. But due to limitation of capacity, annually thirty five thousand successful outputs of HSC examinee may be enrolled in these institutions. In 2008, over 275,000 students passed HSC, but only less than 100,000 could be admitted in the universities and most among the rest got admitted into the National University colleges or were dropped out. For the remaining vast number, the need is to open alternative choices such as, vocational education, correspondence course, open university programmes, departmental training by employing agencies, and like in order to conserve resources and maintain academic standard. This will involve a careful and detailed planning, a massive programme of technical and vocational education and larger allocation of funds.
Quality: The demand for higher education also affects the quality of education. Assurance of quality, rather than scoring just quantity, is a critical issue in higher education. It is a general perception and a very widely circulated view that the quality of higher education in Bangladesh is low and that the standard has fallen over time. The bench mark of comparison may be international or even national when the temporal reference is considered. Quality of higher education is usually measured by employability of their products. The existing pattern of unemployment and under-employment of university graduates implies that the system is not working efficiently and effectively.
Governance: The greatest challenge to higher education in Bangladesh today is definitely in establishing the principles of good governance, which includes, authority, autonomy, transparency, accountability, participation, responsiveness, coordination, efficiency, capacity building, equity and sustainability. Satisfying demands of all these indicators is not at all easy, but efforts must be made to such an end. The problems of governance are quite different in the public and private university systems, but it can be said that most of the universities in either system suffer from the problems of misgovernance. During the past, many public universities have been accused of serious administrative and financial irregularities, while many among the private universities have similarly been charged specially with lack of transparency, non-compliance of conditions set for them by the UGC and the Ministry of Education. The fundamental purpose of higher education, which is to create knowledge and produce enlightened and skilled human resources, must be satisfied.
Relevance: One common criticism of higher education is that it is characterized by traditionalism without having any significant relevance to the national needs and problems of rural economy of the country. The unemployment of huge products of education implies that it is not effective and relevant for their absorption in appropriate jobs. Higher education which consumes more money from public sector in per-student investment if not relevant, is a total waste. So the present pattern of higher education needs to be rectified through national planning, manpower requirements and educational relevancy.
Efficiency: The efficiency of higher education is proved by the usability of their products and there contribution to the society. The outputs of higher education is one criterion or measuring efficiency. There is a large number of failure, nearly 52% in the degree examination. In the honours and masters level the percentage of pass is much higher than degree level. But among the successful outputs only the able students hope to enter into the profession which require high academic competency and professional skills. Another weakness of higher education is that universities and colleges have no follow up records of their graduates. The data on unemployment of graduates of universities and colleges which are currently available are scanty and sometimes contradictory. There is also lack of scientific tool for measuring efficiency (both of internal and external) of higher education. Brain drain is another indicator of measuring efficiency of the education system. A large number of able students going abroad every year means that education system lacks adequate facilities for higher studies and research. In this way we lose many of the potential best products who could have greatly contributed to the development of economy and the society.
Modernization of curriculum and syllabus in the light of new knowledge is one of the essential tasks of any education system. The curriculum of higher education, particularly, should be regularly updated so that it can incorporate the contributions of modern knowledge and research and make its standard acceptable to the outside world. There were curricular reforms in Bangladesh in the past but no radical reform was so far done. The teachers require exposure to various external influences within the country and abroad. In order to facilitate such an exposure, the universities should develop a multifaceted programme of faculty improvement on a regular basis such as encouraging professional conferences, participation of faculty member in such conference and workshop both in the country and outside, liaison with the industry, maintaining contact with national and international problems, inviting distinguished visitors for lecture, discussion and collaborating work, providing good library, reproduction facilities, encouraging faculty members to write text/reference books, encouraging exchange programme between similar institutions and organizations and developing suitable facility for documentation, abstracting, reference services for wider dissemination of information.
The goals of higher education and particularly the university education are to expand the frontier of knowledge, share knowledge and enable the society to enjoy the fruits of their intellectual pursuit. To address these, the government has given serious thought to the reform of the education system. It has adopted several significant measures for improvement of national education policy from primary to tertiary level. The measures relating to tertiary level deserves special mention. We are very much optimistic about the Strategic Plan for Higher Education in Bangladesh: 2006-2026 which has been already prepared by the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh with the joint collaboration of the World Bank and Bangladesh Government. Meanwhile, the Government of Bangladesh has approved the project named Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) and the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh is the implementing agency of this said project. If the projects are implemented properly and effectively, the present scenario of higher education in Bangladesh (both public and private universities) will improve satisfactorily in respect of quality, demand, existing challenges and issues to keep pace with the global world.
The writer is a PhD fellow at the University of Dhaka and can be reached at fakhrulugc@yahoo.com
Education, as we all know, is a key to development, for a nation as well for an individual. Higher education is inevitable for development of a nation as a whole. By the term higher education, in Bangladesh we normally understand education at the tertiary level beyond the higher secondary level. It would therefore include education provided in the universities and under-graduate and post-graduate colleges.
Many scholarly essays and books and dissertations have been written in the area of knowledge, education and learning within the context of a university. The continuing debate about the role of a university is rich and revealing. For example, one educationist in his book named 'The Universities' said 'the universities were undoubtedly one of the most significant creation of medieval world. Their graduates helped to shape its thoughts to create a mode of intellectual discipline, to lay the foundation for a scientific culture, to interpret its laws and its customs and to administer its governments'. Another educationist named Robert Wolf in his book The Ideal of the University discussed four models for ideal university: the university as a sanctuary of scholarship, the university as a training camp for professions, the university as a social service centre, and the university as an assembly line for established 'men and women'.
The main function of the university is to create knowledge and to disseminate knowledge. Within the context of a university all activities in which the faculty and students engage themselves are expected to create and disseminate knowledge. The university bears the responsibility of moving the society forward by addressing the pressing problems for the society and producing the positive thinkers, business and political leaders and intelligent workers. In this age of globalisation, technological advancement and competition, there is no alternative to the creation of a knowledge-based society which is only possible through universities of very high quality.
There is a fair consensus that a system of higher education is of strategic importance in national development of any country. For this purpose expansion of higher education is a genuine claim. But in recent times what has been happening in higher education is a frustrating scene. The political and sociological forces are making a compelling demand for quantitative growth of education. These forces are less concerned about simultaneous change in traditional objectives of higher education, improvement in management and efficiency in performances.
At present there are 32 public universities in the country, with a new university having been declared by the newly elected government to be set up at Gopalganj, has also been approved, thus raising the number of public universities to 33. There are currently as many as 51 private universities in the country, most of these being very hurriedly and carelessly approved and established during the last regime. Some of these universities have already achieved fairly large student population; a few of the older ones, can claim quality. Among the functioning 30 public universities, 29 are campus based, while the National University is an affiliated university, with over 1876 colleges located all over the country, and the Bangladesh Open University, based on the Distance Learning mode also has a country-wide coverage through its Regional Resource Centres and Branches. The 29 campus-based public universities together had 153,249 students in 2008, while the NU had 855,744 and the BOU had 232,353 students. The 51 private universities had 124,267 students at that time.
Enrolment is one of the major indicators of determining demand for education. There are nearly one thousand eight hundred and seventy six (1876) degree colleges in the country. A large number of students of these colleges study humanities or liberal arts subjects. Data from UGC Annual Report source shows that nearly 64% of the students appearing in degree examination in 2008 were from arts and humanities group. Only a small number of 13% and 18% appeared in science and commerce subjects respectively. In Bangladesh Agricultural University 3,458 students were enrolled in the session of 2007-2008 and the largest number of them were in the faculty of agriculture. In this university only 21.35% of students were female and out of this number many of them were enrolled in the faculty of agriculture.
There are many problems in higher education in Bangladesh. Here I will touch upon some of the major and areas :
Access: The growth of enrolment at the secondary level and large number of outputs from HSC examination put a pressure for admission in the higher educational institutions. But due to limitation of capacity, annually thirty five thousand successful outputs of HSC examinee may be enrolled in these institutions. In 2008, over 275,000 students passed HSC, but only less than 100,000 could be admitted in the universities and most among the rest got admitted into the National University colleges or were dropped out. For the remaining vast number, the need is to open alternative choices such as, vocational education, correspondence course, open university programmes, departmental training by employing agencies, and like in order to conserve resources and maintain academic standard. This will involve a careful and detailed planning, a massive programme of technical and vocational education and larger allocation of funds.
Quality: The demand for higher education also affects the quality of education. Assurance of quality, rather than scoring just quantity, is a critical issue in higher education. It is a general perception and a very widely circulated view that the quality of higher education in Bangladesh is low and that the standard has fallen over time. The bench mark of comparison may be international or even national when the temporal reference is considered. Quality of higher education is usually measured by employability of their products. The existing pattern of unemployment and under-employment of university graduates implies that the system is not working efficiently and effectively.
Governance: The greatest challenge to higher education in Bangladesh today is definitely in establishing the principles of good governance, which includes, authority, autonomy, transparency, accountability, participation, responsiveness, coordination, efficiency, capacity building, equity and sustainability. Satisfying demands of all these indicators is not at all easy, but efforts must be made to such an end. The problems of governance are quite different in the public and private university systems, but it can be said that most of the universities in either system suffer from the problems of misgovernance. During the past, many public universities have been accused of serious administrative and financial irregularities, while many among the private universities have similarly been charged specially with lack of transparency, non-compliance of conditions set for them by the UGC and the Ministry of Education. The fundamental purpose of higher education, which is to create knowledge and produce enlightened and skilled human resources, must be satisfied.
Relevance: One common criticism of higher education is that it is characterized by traditionalism without having any significant relevance to the national needs and problems of rural economy of the country. The unemployment of huge products of education implies that it is not effective and relevant for their absorption in appropriate jobs. Higher education which consumes more money from public sector in per-student investment if not relevant, is a total waste. So the present pattern of higher education needs to be rectified through national planning, manpower requirements and educational relevancy.
Efficiency: The efficiency of higher education is proved by the usability of their products and there contribution to the society. The outputs of higher education is one criterion or measuring efficiency. There is a large number of failure, nearly 52% in the degree examination. In the honours and masters level the percentage of pass is much higher than degree level. But among the successful outputs only the able students hope to enter into the profession which require high academic competency and professional skills. Another weakness of higher education is that universities and colleges have no follow up records of their graduates. The data on unemployment of graduates of universities and colleges which are currently available are scanty and sometimes contradictory. There is also lack of scientific tool for measuring efficiency (both of internal and external) of higher education. Brain drain is another indicator of measuring efficiency of the education system. A large number of able students going abroad every year means that education system lacks adequate facilities for higher studies and research. In this way we lose many of the potential best products who could have greatly contributed to the development of economy and the society.
Modernization of curriculum and syllabus in the light of new knowledge is one of the essential tasks of any education system. The curriculum of higher education, particularly, should be regularly updated so that it can incorporate the contributions of modern knowledge and research and make its standard acceptable to the outside world. There were curricular reforms in Bangladesh in the past but no radical reform was so far done. The teachers require exposure to various external influences within the country and abroad. In order to facilitate such an exposure, the universities should develop a multifaceted programme of faculty improvement on a regular basis such as encouraging professional conferences, participation of faculty member in such conference and workshop both in the country and outside, liaison with the industry, maintaining contact with national and international problems, inviting distinguished visitors for lecture, discussion and collaborating work, providing good library, reproduction facilities, encouraging faculty members to write text/reference books, encouraging exchange programme between similar institutions and organizations and developing suitable facility for documentation, abstracting, reference services for wider dissemination of information.
The goals of higher education and particularly the university education are to expand the frontier of knowledge, share knowledge and enable the society to enjoy the fruits of their intellectual pursuit. To address these, the government has given serious thought to the reform of the education system. It has adopted several significant measures for improvement of national education policy from primary to tertiary level. The measures relating to tertiary level deserves special mention. We are very much optimistic about the Strategic Plan for Higher Education in Bangladesh: 2006-2026 which has been already prepared by the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh with the joint collaboration of the World Bank and Bangladesh Government. Meanwhile, the Government of Bangladesh has approved the project named Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) and the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh is the implementing agency of this said project. If the projects are implemented properly and effectively, the present scenario of higher education in Bangladesh (both public and private universities) will improve satisfactorily in respect of quality, demand, existing challenges and issues to keep pace with the global world.
The writer is a PhD fellow at the University of Dhaka and can be reached at fakhrulugc@yahoo.com