Professor AK Azad Chowdhury, chairman of the University Grants Commission, tells New Age
THE government needs to establish a higher education commission to ensure quality education at the tertiary level, says Professor AK Azad Chowdhury, chairman of the University Grants Commission.Redressing the limitations of the commission in terms of authority, infrastructure, capacity, and human and financial resources is also ‘essential’ to attain the goal set in the constitution and the education policy, Azad, a former vice-chancellor of Dhaka University, said in an exclusive interview with New Age on Monday. Excerpts:
It is the responsibility of the state to create opportunities for education for people. Do you think that the state has been able to discharge this responsibility?I think the state has, more or less, been able to discharge its responsibilities to provide education, from primary to tertiary, including technical and vocational education.Bangladesh is an emerging nation with 94 per cent enrolment in primary education. Dropout has been reduced but yet to be stopped fully. The success rates in different examinations are encouraging. Successes in education are not bad in the context of Bangladesh’s socio-economic condition. The government has started implementation of the 2009 education policy and there were scopes for further improvement in higher education. It is true that education is not the number one priority in terms of allocation in the national budget. Allocation for education is 11.6 per cent of the total national budget, which is two per cent of the GDP. In India, it is 4 per cent, in Nepal 25 per cent, in Maldives 7 per cent and in Malaysia 5 per cent. UNESCO recommendation was for 4.5 per cent allocation.However, it is also true that food, energy and infrastructure are also important sectors for national allocations in our context. I am not saying that everything would be done with the increase of allocation for education alone. Thailand has provided tablet PC to many students recently. But it has not helped much to improve quality of education there. Only a gadget cannot improve the quality of education when sincerity, commitment and teachers-students relations, among many others, are much more important than money. Allocation, especially in higher education, is also very low with only 10 per cent of the total allocation for the education. It is only 0.25 per cent of the GDP and that is very negligible. However, I believe the quality of education could have been improved much if the funds allocated had been properly utilised.It is needless to say that quality higher education is essential for creating a convergence of knowledge, science, technology, innovation and skills in a nation. So it is necessary to increase allocation despite shortage of national resources.Bangladesh is the fourth country in terms of enrolment in the tertiary level educational institutions in Asia and Oceania region. Many countries are envious that about two million persons study at the graduate and post-graduate levels here. However, we are far behind in ensuring quality education at the tertiary level although our youths are much more talented and full of creativity and resilience than their counterparts in many other countries. In the past three and a half years, the UGC has approved establishment of seven new public universities in different districts in different disciplines including maritime, science and technology, agriculture, veterinary science, etc. New universities, public or private, in a good number of cases, provide updated knowledge and new thinking among the students. It is true that there was no provision to evaluate quality of education provided by the universities. The government has made the provision in a law in 2010.Many complain that while private universities have mushroomed over the years, very few of these actually offer quality education.There is a surge of private universities although yet many people believe that many private universities failed to maintain quality in education, let alone excellence. Ten to 12, out of about 60, private universities have been providing quality education and there degrees are accepted by many foreign universities.What about the so-called ‘study centres’ of foreign universities? Several foreign private universities have opened their study centres here. I do not believe that these centres have proper ambiance for tertiary education. However, most of the mother universities abroad do accept the credits. There are also allegations of fake degrees, certificates on sale.A major concern is that several private universities provide fake degrees and sell certificates through their name-only centres. The UGC is trying to rein in such malpractices.I would not claim that we were very much successful in containing fake degrees as there was no legal provision to regulate them. Whenever the UGC tried to shut the name-only campus and centres, they went to the court and got a stay order. The UGC had to wait for two to three years to vacate a stay order.The students have become victim of this situation. I personally believe that the court processes should be completed at a faster pace. Is higher education not getting expensive for students with poor economic background? Higher education at public institutions is almost free with nominal monthly tuition fee and charge for seats at dormitories. In fact, the pay structure benefits, in most of the cases, students from higher and middle income backgrounds.A student needs to spend at least Tk 1,500 for admission tests in several universities. We are working on making the admission tests easier with creating clusters of tertiary educational institutions of same discipline subject to approval of the university authorities. Only 25 per cent students of Dhaka University were from poor economic background. It is, however, true that the stipend that we provide at a rate of Tk 300 per month based on the students’ results are nominal. It would be better if we could provide them Tk 1,000 to 1,500 per month. I think students from higher and middle-income families need to pay more. I do not see anything wrong in charging higher fees for students from this economic background, as they are willing to pay substantially higher fees to private educational institutions. Do public universities get student with good educational backgrounds for higher education?In the past, a good number of students with uniform academic standard, high moral values and tenacity for study used to get admitted to the universities despite their financial hardship. Now we get only 10 per cent students who are really interested in acquiring knowledge. There are huge qualitative differences between the first 10 per cent and the next 40 per cent students. What is your assessment of the quality of teaching staff in tertiary educational institutions as teachers, in most cases, play the role of political activists?It is true that there is a shortage of dedicated teachers who would provide quality-time to students. To run their families, most of the public university teachers are found engaged in classes in private institutions and other activities when they are expected to conduct research and maintain student contacts. It deprives meritorious students. It is unfortunate. I think the government should provide a separate pay scale for the public university teachers. The teachers should also maintain certain values, high morality and ideals. The other point is there is hardly any programme for faculty development. There was a programme in the past to send about 100 young bright lecturers abroad for higher study and research. But there is no such project right now. We, from the UGC, provide 15-20 scholarships every year for teachers. What is the state of public university libraries?The libraries of public universities are becoming virtual libraries with high-speed wi-fi connections across the campuses.We are establishing the Bangladesh Research and Education Network to link universities with reputed universities and libraries abroad through a dedicated high-speed fibre optic network. About 10 universities have already got connected.How about the laboratories?It is true that laboratories in several public universities are not up to the mark. However, the UGC, with support from the government, has taken a project to improve the libraries.Often there are complaints of a dearth of basic research.There is a shortage of basic research, which is expensive, let alone other reasons including lack of commitment and dedication. Lights of the Curzon Hall (which houses the science faculty of Dhaka University) were never fully switched off in the past. But, now hardly any people can be found there after 5:00pm. The arts Building of the university becomes barren after 2:00pm! Bangladesh spends only 0.2 per cent of the GDP in research when a good number of countries spend about 2.5 per cent. I believe we need to keep campus lively and busy with cultural activities round the year. I would be happy if students give attention in more research.The government is implementing a Tk 700 crore project with finance from the World Bank to provide grants for research with innovative ideas in any discipline in social, agricultural, energy, medical sectors.We are expecting that this project would help improve the quality of teaching in the universities.Residency for students… Residency of students in general, girl students in particular, in public universities is a huge problem. We have initiated the process for construction of a 11-storied building with four towers for girl students of Dhaka University. Private universities, in most of the cases, do not provide students residency.The number of foreign students in public universities has decreased over the years. Why?Why foreign students would come here if we fail to demonstrate excellence in higher education, when they have alternatives to go in the region. How do you look at the involvement of teachers in partisan activities on campuses? As individuals, university teachers may have certain political views. We see think tanks leaning to certain political parties in different countries.But partisan attitude should not be reflected in the appointments of the teachers and the way they teach students as well. How about student politics in universities? A small number of students are involved in students’ organisations nowadays. Many of them are involved in creating instability in the campus. When I was the vice-chancellor of Dhaka University, we expelled about 50 workers of the [Bangladesh] Chhatra League, an associate body of the then ruling party Awami League for students, and 17 workers of [Jatiyatabadi] Chhatra Dal, associate body of then opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party for students. Many people criticised me for this saying that I was out to destroy the BCL. But, the then prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, did not say anything.The DUCSU election was last held 22 years ago. Do you not think that elections to university students unions should be held regularly?With whom a vice-chancellor would discuss the problems of the students if there is no elected body for students. I dissolved DUCSU in 1997 as election was overdue. I tried to conduct a vote. But Chhatra Dal did not agree to join the election at that time.The seats designated for students’ representatives on the DU senate are vacant as there is no elected body. It has become a common phenomenon that the students’ organisation backed by the ruling party wants to participate in election when the organisation leaning to the opposition parties asks for level playing field. In this situation, no vice-chancellor wants to take the risk to jeopardise academic atmosphere for extra-academic activities.However, I believe holding elections to university students unions would add value to our political culture. What problems does the UGC face in discharging its duties?The UGC also suffers from inherent weaknesses. It plays the role of post office between the education ministry and the universities.The public universities were made autonomous through enactment of a law in 1973 on operations of the universities. The UGC was expected to be a buffer institution between the universities and the government.There were six public universities at that time. But, there are about 100 public and private universities including study centres of foreign universities. The UGC has had to work with the same infrastructure, human resource and mental make-up of 1973. When the 1973 law was made, there was no private university.It is needless to say that the concept of localised universities has no use in meeting contemporary demands, local and international, in different disciplines keeping global perspectives in consideration. Cross-border higher education is a new issue as many reputed (foreign) universities have started establishing campus and study centres in other countries. Malaysia is an example where several Australian universities, e.g. Monash, opened their campus. After a new law on private universities was enacted in 2010, the UGC has now started facilitating and supervising the universities. I believe the government should form a higher education commission cater to local and foreign needs. Now local students need to build themselves to compete for international responsibilities. An accreditation council would be formed to assess, with independent panel of experts, universities. Although there would be UGC representatives in it, the council would work independently for credible and acceptable accreditation of universities. It would be a assessment on faculty, student, research, publication, not only publication, how many times a publication was sited. The council, I believe, would help to ensure quality education in universities.
