To improve education quality of the private universities
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Ferdous Ahmed
THE country's 53 private universities have been providing education to students many of whom could not get admission in the public universities. But a number of the private universities are facing the allegations that they do not provide quality education lacking teachers, labs.
A high powered committee, after probing the performance of the private universities, sometime ago, recommended the shutting down of eight of the universities immediately for inadequacies in performance in all respects. The committee also found at least 18 other private universities seriously deficient in many ways and suggested that their authorities should be admonished to improve the standards. Tough penal action was recommended if they failed to do so within a stipulated period of time. The recommendations called for asking most of the private universities to observe the rules pertaining to their academic standards and maintenance of the required physical facilities. The committee recommended for the lowering of fees charged by most of the private universities and for admitting poor but meritorious students free of charge or against nominal payments.
The high costs of education at the private universities meant that they remain off limits for many students. As the private universities are making money they can easily provide an alternative to some young meritorious students who got no admission to the public universities. Qualitatively too, except a few, the teaching standard, the academic atmosphere and the value of the degrees offered by private universities, are of questionable quality. But this lack of quality does not prevent them from charging exorbitant fees.
The private universities lack proper campuses. Housed in rented buildings, they work more like coaching centres than universities, with the required facilities spread over big campuses that create both an academic atmosphere and aesthetic environment needed for learning at the higher stages. Some of them claim to be the franchises of educational institutions abroad. The foreign institutions could be nondescript but the young ones here fall prey to foreign names and take admission to get an assured standard of education. Even the universities here that having tie-ups with better known foreign institutions are probably violating the rules by not providing the educations of the standard provided by the university abroad, whose names they use or exploit.
It was shocking to learn that some of the private medical universities here run anatomy courses without the practical classes for dissection. The same kind of lapses occurs in other disciplines. This happens because the private institutions in most cases lack proper labs or other required facilities for providing the education on offer. Part of the reason for this state of affairs remains the profit motive coupled with a lack of sense of responsibility on the part of the those who run such institutions. Most of the private universities teach mainly Business Studies or computer applications though any university worth the name should have the facilities to teach physical sciences, humanities or the social sciences.
The government should encourage the growth of private centres of higher education. But it must, at the same time, be much more serious about its regulatory responsibility to ensure that the private institutions are, in the first place, set up only after meeting the requirements. They should maintains the standard and run efficiently.
The establishment of the special committee to investigate into the affairs of the private universities was a good first step to guard the quality of higher education in the country. But no benefit can come out of this exercise since many of the recommendations thereof have not been implemented.
The private universities need to be brought under a sustained and effecting scanner to get them to improve the education quality they offer.
THE country's 53 private universities have been providing education to students many of whom could not get admission in the public universities. But a number of the private universities are facing the allegations that they do not provide quality education lacking teachers, labs.
A high powered committee, after probing the performance of the private universities, sometime ago, recommended the shutting down of eight of the universities immediately for inadequacies in performance in all respects. The committee also found at least 18 other private universities seriously deficient in many ways and suggested that their authorities should be admonished to improve the standards. Tough penal action was recommended if they failed to do so within a stipulated period of time. The recommendations called for asking most of the private universities to observe the rules pertaining to their academic standards and maintenance of the required physical facilities. The committee recommended for the lowering of fees charged by most of the private universities and for admitting poor but meritorious students free of charge or against nominal payments.
The high costs of education at the private universities meant that they remain off limits for many students. As the private universities are making money they can easily provide an alternative to some young meritorious students who got no admission to the public universities. Qualitatively too, except a few, the teaching standard, the academic atmosphere and the value of the degrees offered by private universities, are of questionable quality. But this lack of quality does not prevent them from charging exorbitant fees.
The private universities lack proper campuses. Housed in rented buildings, they work more like coaching centres than universities, with the required facilities spread over big campuses that create both an academic atmosphere and aesthetic environment needed for learning at the higher stages. Some of them claim to be the franchises of educational institutions abroad. The foreign institutions could be nondescript but the young ones here fall prey to foreign names and take admission to get an assured standard of education. Even the universities here that having tie-ups with better known foreign institutions are probably violating the rules by not providing the educations of the standard provided by the university abroad, whose names they use or exploit.
It was shocking to learn that some of the private medical universities here run anatomy courses without the practical classes for dissection. The same kind of lapses occurs in other disciplines. This happens because the private institutions in most cases lack proper labs or other required facilities for providing the education on offer. Part of the reason for this state of affairs remains the profit motive coupled with a lack of sense of responsibility on the part of the those who run such institutions. Most of the private universities teach mainly Business Studies or computer applications though any university worth the name should have the facilities to teach physical sciences, humanities or the social sciences.
The government should encourage the growth of private centres of higher education. But it must, at the same time, be much more serious about its regulatory responsibility to ensure that the private institutions are, in the first place, set up only after meeting the requirements. They should maintains the standard and run efficiently.
The establishment of the special committee to investigate into the affairs of the private universities was a good first step to guard the quality of higher education in the country. But no benefit can come out of this exercise since many of the recommendations thereof have not been implemented.
The private universities need to be brought under a sustained and effecting scanner to get them to improve the education quality they offer.