IBA, 14 DU depts to include CSR

Mohammad Ali | Published: December 24, 2013 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is going to be included in the academic course of the university level education for the first time in the history of Bangladesh.
The initiative is expected to facilitate generation of workforce with clear understanding of CSR and better utilization of the concept in the corporate sector, ultimately helping to build a better Bangladesh.
The Dhaka University (DU) has recently decided to incorporate CSR in the curricula of Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and 14 departments under the Social Science and Business Studies faculties.
The academic council of the university already approved a course outline on December 12, 2013 in this connection, sources in the DU said.
Inclusion of CSR in the DU curricula was prompted mainly from the lessons, learnt in a five-year long project of a non-government organisation (NGO), that the companies practicing CSR in Bangladesh are facing difficulty in finding trained minds.
The project "Mainstreaming CSR to Address Poverty (MCAP)", ended in July this year, was mainly intended to promote and make popular the CSR in the country's corporate sector to 'substitute' it as an alternative to the donors' funds for development activities, its officials said.
The CSR has already gained momentum especially in the banking sector of the country in the last few years thanks to the necessary initiatives and policy support from the Bangladesh Bank.
However, following proposal from the NGO-- Management and Resources Development Initiative (MRDI), the DU authorities formed a curriculum development team, which includes deans and faculty members of the university and resource persons from MRDI, they said.
Meeting several times and discussing in threadbare, the team developed the course outline.
"The course outline was designed in a way that a teacher or the department concerned can teach it (CSR) as an individual course or a chapter," Syed Ferhat Anwar, Prof of the IBA and one of the team members, told the FE.
Considering the global perspective on the matter, Mr Anwar also opined, "The CSR should be compulsory as an individual course in the curricula over time."
The outline also leaves room for modifications and fine tuning by different faculties and departments for their undergraduate and post graduate students.
It was expected in the course outline that time may come when a separate department on CSR will be opened in the university based on this small effort as the foundation.
The 14 departments selected for the course are: economics, public administration, mass communication and journalism, development studies, sociology, and TV and film studies under the social science faculty, while finance, accounting and information system, management studies, marketing, banking and insurance, international business, management information system, and tourism and hospitability management under the business studies faculty.
"By incorporating CSR in the curriculum, we indented to develop a vibrant CSR culture, thus contributing to building a strong human resource base," DU Vice Chancellor Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique said.
"On completion of studies in CSR related course, the students will be better equipped for their professional career. It will also facilitate the employers run their CSR activities in a meaningful way," Mr Siddique added.
The five-year project "MCAP", which identified the necessity of incorporating CSR in the university level education, was implemented by MRDI in partnership with Manusher Jonno Foundation (MJF), official concerned said.
To improve the teachers' capacity to teach the students better on CSR, the MRDI with financial support from the Bangladesh Bank also took an advocacy and capacity building initiative.
Under the 12-month initiative, 17 teachers of different departments and institute of the DU are likely to participate in a week-long training abroad in March, 2014.
Enhanced capacity of the university teachers is expected to result in improved CSR skill of fresh graduates, who are the potential corporate executives and will substantially contribute to undertake focused, target specific and sustainable CSR interventions for the social development.
Under the initiative, the MRDI will also arrange roundtable discussions, television talk-shows and publish selected articles of CSR review in order to strengthen support of the policy makers, business community and civil society members for CSR as a development tool.