National University needs urgent remedial actions, not shutting down

IBRAHIM secured GPA 5 in HSC. He considered himself lucky as he qualified for "English" as his BA honours course under the National University, after failing to get the same subject in public universities. He was first among his family members to study in the tertiary level of education. But his studying hard to retain his good result was pressed down for all types of irregularities including a long procrastination of result of honours delayed by three years and MA one more year. The unscrupulous script-checking-marks and gaps of study put him in with a wrong addicted crowd. He began taking drugs regularly. Going astray by shuttering the family dream is attributed to such commons when future holds a potential individual with no promise. An ideal university is a repository of all promising ideas serving as a think- tank for a country to search for the truth to dig out all darkness so that it can take forward a nation going ahead. Sadly, the objective of an ideal university doesn't match with National University of Bangladesh. It plays with thousands of students' lives. Session jam, politically biased recruitment, unskilled and inefficient administrative staff, mismanagement, lack of coordination of the departments, non-upgraded curricula and a gross array of irregularities put the future of this university on the horns of a dilemma. Interestingly, thy name is National University! The primary reason why the National University was formed in 1992 had a noble cause of easing the mountainous pressure of work of public universities. But the responsibilities and rights that they are given with meet not a single criterion . National University is the biggest university in terms of volume and number of students. About one million students are studying in more than 1600 colleges affiliated with this university. And students are cheated in every possible way.They are gridlocked under the curse of session jam. For example, in the first year of degree pass course, there are 3 batches running at the same time. The respective authorities failing to resolve the problem do nothing but sitting like the paralyzed organ of the government. Due to the poor monitoring by the administration, the total system of the university collapses to a great extent. So there is no way to check what the teachers teach, how they teach, what the learners write, if the classes are taken regularly, if the teachers ensure quality, if the exam scripts are checked timely, or if the syllabus is followed and so on. The university is changing the syllabi every year. At this moment, students of honours are attending classes without the new syllabus from the university. Moreover, teachers face innumerous hurdles when they come to Gazipur where the administrative office of National University is situated, for there is not enough accommodation to stay there, thus resulting in procrastination in their work. Besides teachers are not trained up on a regular basis and even if there are arrangement of some training, they are not good enough and up-to-date. Furthermore, the National University teachers and students are devoid of getting chance to any kind of research work whereas it is one of the most important issues of being a quality university. The rule of placing 'right person in the right place' is violated as the recruitment of the National University is politically considered overlooking the skilled person suited for the various posts in administration, thus becoming the rendezvous of all unscrupulous people. The prevailing situation of administration is alarming. The activities of the administration are full of corruption and done in a sluggish manner except the under-table money. Recently the syndicate of National University sacked 821 accused employees who were recruited deceitfully by a fake advertisement during the tenure of BNP-led alliance government. In the wake of all irregularities and threatening concerns of the National University, our education minister said that the government might have to shut down the activities of National University if the allegations of corruption and anomalies against its authority were proved.The utterance of "shut down" seems "dumbfounding" to the many. Educationists opine that the government should make this important institution a corruption free one rather than planning to abolish it. Most of the Bangladeshi students try tertiary education to find opportunities to break the cycle of poverty upgrading their social status. It is the high demand of the time that government should keep the National University free from all anomalies and make it a university - a centre of excellence where students get much acceleration and motivation in study to strengthen their ways of life in future. The writer can be reached at jamdani85@yahoo.com 3 Students face consequences of traffic congestion Traffic congestion does have huge impact and obviously negative impacts on our students. Every now and then students miss their classes and exams due to the traffic congestions, and furthermore, when someone needs to wait a huge amount of time on the roads, we truly need to analyse how heshe could possibly concentrate on studies, writes Salahuddin Ahmed One day, I started my class at Independent University, Bangladesh; one of my students came thirty minutes late in the class. This particular student ranks one of the best and normally does not become late in the class. On being asked the reason, he pointed out that the traffic congestion made him late come to the class. The fact of the matter is traffic congestion makes us late in completing all our activities and this chronic problem also plays a huge negative impact on our education sector. Question is how this problem implies to the education sector. Before pointing out this fact, I truly want to portray some of the scenario of this terrible problem of Dhaka city. Can we mitigate this problem from Dhaka city ? Surely we can. We simply need to know how to tackle this problem. There are certainly some ways to reduce the chronic traffic jam of Dhaka city. If we closely monitor we can figure out that many vehicles take some unauthorised U-turn that actually causes real traffic dilemma. We can find a way to avoid this U-turn, but we just let things go the way it goes. We must find out some designated areas that can be used for this U-turn. Speaking about U-turn it should be mentioned that some cars or buses have some special privileges to take turn anywhere; thanks to some traffic police officers who actually 'allow' these vehicles to take wrong turn. We actually do not know that our traffic police can make the difference. It is truly an urgent step to form a body to monitor these traffic police. Sometimes some police are seen to play with their sticks while buses, cars and other vehicles fight to get away from the dreadful traffic. In this regard again we must say that our administration needs to be active to take action against any mischief. It is obvious that private cars make this traffic more precarious. These cars run every nook and corner of the city and do not mind sneaking through narrow roads that causes more damage to the whole scenario. Is it necessary to park these cars in front of schools that make traffic jolt more serious? Since we are talking here about the educational institutions, these educational institutions make huge blockages on the roads through the private cars of the students. Especially in the schools, located in the crowded areas, when there are many parents who come with their children, come by cars and park their cars just in front of the schools that causes huge traffic congestion. People would definitely do that, but our administration needs to make sure to prevent this. I was studying in Ohio, USA and I have seen many people, especially some teenagers try to break the rules while driving the cars, but they cannot do that because of the tight administration and tight rules and regulations. It is obvious that if we could have strict implementation of rules and regulations, we could have prevented many problems. Traffic congestion does have huge impact and obviously negative impacts on our students. Every now and then students miss their classes and exams due to the traffic congestions, and furthermore, when someone needs to wait a huge amount of time on the roads, we truly need to analyse how heshe could possibly concentrate on studies. Right now clash between students and bus conductor or driver is also a common scenario in Dhaka city. This conflict actually curdles the whole situation. Conflict can take place, but to mitigate these our police officers must come to the spot in time. But it is surprising to see the roles our police play in this regard. Since we cannot tackle this situation in time, people along with the students taste the unprecedented sufferings of this terrible traffic. We actually cannot blame it, if we cannot stop this huge traffic congestion, it will bring more clashes and disasters for us, which could ultimately deteriorate the minds of our students. For some recommendation of how we could minimize this huge problem, we can accept some truths. It is obvious that all roads in Dhaka city are congested or narrow; many roads are quite wide to meet even the current spurt. But we allow unauthorized parking that squeezes all roads here in Dhaka city. To face the current horrific situation we must take some corrective measures right away. We must not allow any vehicle park on streets where buses and public cars are operating every now and then. It is not necessary that cars must sit in front of the office where traffic is terrible; we need to design some spaces where we can park these cars. Just for an example, it takes almost two hours from Dhanmondi to come to Bashundhora, where couples of reputed private universities are located. When students come from a distance to these places, they need to actually fight to reach to their destination. We must make sure that we do something different to tackle this situation. We need to provide a sound environment especially to our students who would play role to enhance the development process of our country. Not only in educational institutions in Bashundhora, in many different institutions students do go from different places and they need to spend a great deal of their valuable time only to reach their schools, colleges or universities. Traffic congestion-- 'the greatest' problem of this beautiful city must be solved in no time. If we talk about development process of our country, we must find a way to minimize the traffic that becomes a common part of our daily life. We do not know how much energy and time we spend for this traffic congestion and for these expenses, how we are getting backward day by day. This problem is acute, especially for our students and education institutions since they are the future of our country and we should not make things complicated for them. The writer is lecturer at School of Business in Independent University, Bangladesh,