Restoring the glory of Dhaka University
Ahmadul Ameen | Friday, 13 June 2008
A few years ago I read in newspaper that in the 1920s, there were two candidates for one post of lecturer in the department of Physics of the Dhaka University. The candidates were Dr. Meghnad Shaha and Shattyen Bose. I sat up in excitement to read the next line, which stated that their referees were none other than Marx Planck and Albert Einstein respectively. It was a mind-boggling write-up by any standard. Two of the greatest scientists the world has ever seen, had recommended two young men for a single teaching job in one of the little known universities, in a remote corner of the world. Unfortunately, Meghnad Shaha did not get the job. At a later date Einstein once again had to step in with his strong recommendation to promote Shattyen Bose as a Professor, as he was having difficulty to get it without a PhD.
In the early days the university must have earned eminence as a centre of learning, so much so that it was known as the Oxford of the East. This is a university, which is the Alma Mater of thousands of alumni including a Nobel laureate, who have made their mark all over the world. The university and the nation can rightly be proud of their achievements and contributions.
But can the university, at this point in time, claim the same glory? The answer is an emphatic no. This premier educational institution hardly features in any of the university rankings. Even this nearly century-old university is not considered good enough to be ranked among the top hundred Asian universities. It is pathetic, and more so, when we compare it with two relatively young universities of Singapore National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, which are not only ranked as two of the top Asian universities, but also have surged past many of the famous and reputed western universities in the global ranking. Consider the IITs and IIMs of India, whose graduates are sought after, throughout the world.
For a radical improvement in the quality of education, Bangladesh must create a number of centres of educational excellence. These institutions can then serve as models to be followed by other public and private universities. Initially, efforts should be made to upgrade the Dhaka University and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Let the two universities be developed into two competing full faculty universities. It means the BUET should have non-engineering faculties and similarly the Dhaka University (DU) should have engineering faculties. Let there be a national resolution that these two universities will be developed so that the education provided by them can be comparable to any top grad university of the world. No stone should be left unturned towards achieving this objective.
If dramatic improvement could be brought in the operation of Chittagong port, why it can't be done for the universities. It's time to clean up the deck and bring the changes, that are overdue.
Some of the issues that hinder the achievement of educational excellence by the DU are reviewed here from an outsider's prospective, and along with some recommendations for actions that the stakeholders need to take.
Because of the tremendous impact of education on nation-building, the government ought to give high priority to it. A high level committee should be formed to recommend and both short- long-term actions and policies for implementation of the overdue changes with missionary zeal, free from bureaucratic control.
Politics on the campus should be banned as a matter of priority. With sweeping action, teachers' associations and politically-affiliated student bodies should be closed down at least for some years. Each individual on the campus should be free to support a political party of preference or even can be its activist outside the campus during his or her free time. But the campus cannot be allowed to be used to further any political or personal ambition. Once and for all, the coloured panels should be made colourless. This is what Lee Kwan Yew did at National University of Singapore by muzzling the activities of politics-ridden faculty and, thus, progressively developed it into a world-class university.
Meaningful development needs funds. Increased funding is a prerequisite to enhance the standard of education. Funding may be arranged through higher budgetary allocation, increased fees from the students, massive drive for raising endowment funds from alumni and donors, and the university can generate income through investment.
Massive investment in physical facilities and infrastructure, including laboratories, libraries, and sports facilities is warranted for the benefit of the students and staff. A radical improvement should be done so that the citizens of Bangladesh can feel proud of their premier educational institutions. The BUET and the DU campuses should be isolated from public traffic by walling up. Access to the Dhaka Medical College should be through separate under- or over-pass.
Generous research funds should be provided so that the academics have access research grants through competition.
In the longer term, both these universities may consider moving their residential campuses to a place like Savar, converting city campuses as non-residential campuses to offer executive MBAs, extra-mural courses and some arts degrees.
University and Faculty: The recruitment and promotion policies have to be made transparent to ensure hiring the best and the brightest talents. If necessary, foreign experts could be included in the selection panel to ensure unbiased hiring. Faculty hiring of all the public universities should preferably be done centrally through the University Grant Commission (UGC) and the candidates should be ranked. This would allow posting the staff in different universities according to their ranking and preference. It would also allow the university the freedom to transfer them to other universities should their performances fall short.
Faculty remuneration and compensation packages have to be improved. A simultaneous restriction must be imposed on their involvement in part-time teaching. It is unfair that they would receive a fraction of the salaries their counterparts get in private universities, some of which provide sub-standard education. Faculties could be encouraged to undertake consultancies but restricting their roles only as consultants' consultants.
The reward system should strictly be based on their performance and not on their political affiliation, birthplace, influence-peddling, or connections. Established faculty evaluation criteria should be adapted straightaway.
The three pillars of faculty performance are research, teaching and administrative contribution. No academic staff should survive in a good university without winning research grants at regular intervals or continually publishing peer-reviewed research papers in top-rated international journals with high impact factor. The poor academics have to worry about the number of citations as well. Besides, top-notch academics should be expected to write books published by reputed publishers. Yes, life is not honey and roses in the competitive cauldron of a world-class university, but good ones do get their reward deservingly.
Good and committed teachers need to be rewarded, even if some of them may not excel in research. But this should be done only after thorough evaluation of their teaching through student feedback, peer evaluation, experts' evaluation and even feedback from ex-students.
Tenure system could be introduced to ensure that only deserving candidates are retained in the university. Undeserving candidates should be weeded out within the first few years. The tenure should last until the age of 55 or thereabout. That is the time the dead woods could be allowed to go while the high performers are retained to carry on, until the ripe age of 65 or 70.
The academics should be allowed to express their opinions on national issues, as the nation may benefit from their knowledge and expertise. In fact with so many TV channels, print media and civic forums, they have ample opportunities to air their views.
However, the activities of the arm-chair politicians of the university should be ensured because the taxpayers' money cannot be wasted on people who act as workers of political parties. The politically ambitious has the right to leave teaching to plunge into full-time politics. The political parties could welcome these talented elements. But they are misfits in the academia. However, very soon they may find out politics is not so easy, or at least not everyone's cup of tea.
Students: The students must realise that they are lucky to be studying in the premier educational institution of the country and must make the best of the opportunity to equip themselves with knowledge and skills needed to face the real world.
Fees paid by the students in the public universities are ridiculously low and they ought to be reviewed for a reasonable increase.
The government should not muzzle the students for expressing their opinions on national issues. After all, the students of the DU have made huge impact on national issues at critical junctures. But no one should support or allow the political parties to exploit their youthful exuberance and idealism to further their narrow and selfish agenda.
Let there be a debating society in the DU like the famous Oxford University Debating Society, where the students can debate on issues of their interests. The debates could be broadcast through radio and TV channels. This would be a constructive way of channelling their activist impulses rather than allowing them to be manipulated, like puppets, by unscrupulous political mentors.
Like in many other countries, only the talented or selected students should be allowed to pursue Honours and post-graduate courses. Other students may leave the university after their pass degree. It is lamentable that the standard of achievement and scholarship of many students, leaving the university with Master's, particularly from the Art's Faculty, can hardly match those of their peers from the good universities.
The standard of teaching of English language should be raised. Without good command of English, our students would lose out in the global race for higher education, jobs as well as businesses.
No student should be allowed to reside in hostels for a period of more than three or four years. The professional practice of students remaining on the campus year after year, to do politics should come to an end.
The DU has the potential not only to regain its past glory, but also to emerge as one of the finest universities in Asia. Its greatest strength is that it draws the best students of the nation other than those going for engineering. It has a strong faculty and rich tradition. All that is needed is to exorcise the political demons, institute the established norms of governance, improve its infrastructure, reward the deserving faculties and revamp the creative environment. This cause deserves very high priority. We hope the entire nation will stand behind this venture, as the stakes are extremely high.
The writer is a retired Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who taught at BUET, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and University Sains Malaysia for over thirty years.
In the early days the university must have earned eminence as a centre of learning, so much so that it was known as the Oxford of the East. This is a university, which is the Alma Mater of thousands of alumni including a Nobel laureate, who have made their mark all over the world. The university and the nation can rightly be proud of their achievements and contributions.
But can the university, at this point in time, claim the same glory? The answer is an emphatic no. This premier educational institution hardly features in any of the university rankings. Even this nearly century-old university is not considered good enough to be ranked among the top hundred Asian universities. It is pathetic, and more so, when we compare it with two relatively young universities of Singapore National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, which are not only ranked as two of the top Asian universities, but also have surged past many of the famous and reputed western universities in the global ranking. Consider the IITs and IIMs of India, whose graduates are sought after, throughout the world.
For a radical improvement in the quality of education, Bangladesh must create a number of centres of educational excellence. These institutions can then serve as models to be followed by other public and private universities. Initially, efforts should be made to upgrade the Dhaka University and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Let the two universities be developed into two competing full faculty universities. It means the BUET should have non-engineering faculties and similarly the Dhaka University (DU) should have engineering faculties. Let there be a national resolution that these two universities will be developed so that the education provided by them can be comparable to any top grad university of the world. No stone should be left unturned towards achieving this objective.
If dramatic improvement could be brought in the operation of Chittagong port, why it can't be done for the universities. It's time to clean up the deck and bring the changes, that are overdue.
Some of the issues that hinder the achievement of educational excellence by the DU are reviewed here from an outsider's prospective, and along with some recommendations for actions that the stakeholders need to take.
Because of the tremendous impact of education on nation-building, the government ought to give high priority to it. A high level committee should be formed to recommend and both short- long-term actions and policies for implementation of the overdue changes with missionary zeal, free from bureaucratic control.
Politics on the campus should be banned as a matter of priority. With sweeping action, teachers' associations and politically-affiliated student bodies should be closed down at least for some years. Each individual on the campus should be free to support a political party of preference or even can be its activist outside the campus during his or her free time. But the campus cannot be allowed to be used to further any political or personal ambition. Once and for all, the coloured panels should be made colourless. This is what Lee Kwan Yew did at National University of Singapore by muzzling the activities of politics-ridden faculty and, thus, progressively developed it into a world-class university.
Meaningful development needs funds. Increased funding is a prerequisite to enhance the standard of education. Funding may be arranged through higher budgetary allocation, increased fees from the students, massive drive for raising endowment funds from alumni and donors, and the university can generate income through investment.
Massive investment in physical facilities and infrastructure, including laboratories, libraries, and sports facilities is warranted for the benefit of the students and staff. A radical improvement should be done so that the citizens of Bangladesh can feel proud of their premier educational institutions. The BUET and the DU campuses should be isolated from public traffic by walling up. Access to the Dhaka Medical College should be through separate under- or over-pass.
Generous research funds should be provided so that the academics have access research grants through competition.
In the longer term, both these universities may consider moving their residential campuses to a place like Savar, converting city campuses as non-residential campuses to offer executive MBAs, extra-mural courses and some arts degrees.
University and Faculty: The recruitment and promotion policies have to be made transparent to ensure hiring the best and the brightest talents. If necessary, foreign experts could be included in the selection panel to ensure unbiased hiring. Faculty hiring of all the public universities should preferably be done centrally through the University Grant Commission (UGC) and the candidates should be ranked. This would allow posting the staff in different universities according to their ranking and preference. It would also allow the university the freedom to transfer them to other universities should their performances fall short.
Faculty remuneration and compensation packages have to be improved. A simultaneous restriction must be imposed on their involvement in part-time teaching. It is unfair that they would receive a fraction of the salaries their counterparts get in private universities, some of which provide sub-standard education. Faculties could be encouraged to undertake consultancies but restricting their roles only as consultants' consultants.
The reward system should strictly be based on their performance and not on their political affiliation, birthplace, influence-peddling, or connections. Established faculty evaluation criteria should be adapted straightaway.
The three pillars of faculty performance are research, teaching and administrative contribution. No academic staff should survive in a good university without winning research grants at regular intervals or continually publishing peer-reviewed research papers in top-rated international journals with high impact factor. The poor academics have to worry about the number of citations as well. Besides, top-notch academics should be expected to write books published by reputed publishers. Yes, life is not honey and roses in the competitive cauldron of a world-class university, but good ones do get their reward deservingly.
Good and committed teachers need to be rewarded, even if some of them may not excel in research. But this should be done only after thorough evaluation of their teaching through student feedback, peer evaluation, experts' evaluation and even feedback from ex-students.
Tenure system could be introduced to ensure that only deserving candidates are retained in the university. Undeserving candidates should be weeded out within the first few years. The tenure should last until the age of 55 or thereabout. That is the time the dead woods could be allowed to go while the high performers are retained to carry on, until the ripe age of 65 or 70.
The academics should be allowed to express their opinions on national issues, as the nation may benefit from their knowledge and expertise. In fact with so many TV channels, print media and civic forums, they have ample opportunities to air their views.
However, the activities of the arm-chair politicians of the university should be ensured because the taxpayers' money cannot be wasted on people who act as workers of political parties. The politically ambitious has the right to leave teaching to plunge into full-time politics. The political parties could welcome these talented elements. But they are misfits in the academia. However, very soon they may find out politics is not so easy, or at least not everyone's cup of tea.
Students: The students must realise that they are lucky to be studying in the premier educational institution of the country and must make the best of the opportunity to equip themselves with knowledge and skills needed to face the real world.
Fees paid by the students in the public universities are ridiculously low and they ought to be reviewed for a reasonable increase.
The government should not muzzle the students for expressing their opinions on national issues. After all, the students of the DU have made huge impact on national issues at critical junctures. But no one should support or allow the political parties to exploit their youthful exuberance and idealism to further their narrow and selfish agenda.
Let there be a debating society in the DU like the famous Oxford University Debating Society, where the students can debate on issues of their interests. The debates could be broadcast through radio and TV channels. This would be a constructive way of channelling their activist impulses rather than allowing them to be manipulated, like puppets, by unscrupulous political mentors.
Like in many other countries, only the talented or selected students should be allowed to pursue Honours and post-graduate courses. Other students may leave the university after their pass degree. It is lamentable that the standard of achievement and scholarship of many students, leaving the university with Master's, particularly from the Art's Faculty, can hardly match those of their peers from the good universities.
The standard of teaching of English language should be raised. Without good command of English, our students would lose out in the global race for higher education, jobs as well as businesses.
No student should be allowed to reside in hostels for a period of more than three or four years. The professional practice of students remaining on the campus year after year, to do politics should come to an end.
The DU has the potential not only to regain its past glory, but also to emerge as one of the finest universities in Asia. Its greatest strength is that it draws the best students of the nation other than those going for engineering. It has a strong faculty and rich tradition. All that is needed is to exorcise the political demons, institute the established norms of governance, improve its infrastructure, reward the deserving faculties and revamp the creative environment. This cause deserves very high priority. We hope the entire nation will stand behind this venture, as the stakes are extremely high.
The writer is a retired Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who taught at BUET, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and University Sains Malaysia for over thirty years.