BANGLADESH AND ITS PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES

By K Vijayachandran

Bangladesh with its 150 million people, and bordered by eight Indian states including West Bengal, is a neighbor of great economic, social and cultural significance for India. It is a densely populated country and as in Kerala, nearly one third surface is covered by water bodies. Rice and vegetable cultivation, agro-processing industries, inland fisheries, inland water transport, water tourism and higher education are obvious areas for mutual cooperation and trade between Kerala and Bangladesh. The author was in Bangladesh for more than a week visiting the International University for Business, Agriculture and Technology, a pioneering private university in Dhaka.

The two Bengals, East and West together, have a population close to 230 million. Dhaka, the second populous city of the subcontinent and next only to Kolkata, is the capital of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, which has nearly three times the population of Kerala. And, Dhaka is just 520 Km away from Kolkata by road, which is getting connected by rail, hopefully by the next Ramzdan season. Most part of my column, this month, was done, sitting in Dhaka: I was invited by the International University for Agriculture, Business and Technology (IUBAT), as a Senior Visiting Fellow. Prof Dr. Alimullah Miyan, the leader of the non-Government university movement in Bangladesh, a friend and associate of mine, had founded this non-government university in 1991, the first of its kind in Bangladesh.

Peoples of the subcontinent have completed this year sixty years of independence, from the more than two centuries of colonial rule. However, there were no signs of grand celebrations in any part of the subcontinent. In India, the ruling United Progressive Alliance, despite the long patriotic traditions of its leading constituent, the Indian National Congress, was on the defensive on the Indo-US nuclear treaty: The treaty has allegedly compromised on national sovereignty. In Pakistan, where independence day is observed on August 14th, US administration was advising President Mushrraf to share political power with his rivals, Benazir Bhuto and Navaz Shariff. Bangladesh celebrates its independence day on 26th March to mark the victory of its liberation army against Pakistani occupation: War of liberation had lasted more than seven months, cleansing not only its cities and towns but also its villages; and Sheik Mujibr Rehman founded the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh on the 26th March of 1971. Founder of the republic was, however, shot dead on the 15th August 1974: Despite the long standing demands from peoples from all walks of like, Bangladesh establishment has not cared to dedicate the day in memory of this great martyr. During the week around August 15th, English newspapers of Dhaka were abundant with articles and reviews on the sixty years of partition and Mujib's martyrdom. Inevitably all of them reflected the yearnings of the peoples of the subcontinent to live in peace and harmony, despite religious and cultural differences.

Islam is the majority religion (88%) of Bangladesh with Hindus in a minority (11%): Like India, it is a secular republic. Buddhism had dominated the region in good old days, and there are several ancient Buddhist enclaves all over the republic. Bangladesh is totally bordered by Indian States, the so-called seven sisters of the North-East and then its own Hindu version on the West: On the South is a short coast line of some 140 Km of the Indian Ocean. Metros of Dhaka and Kolkata share identical cultural traditions and the two regions of Bengal have, by and large, an exemplary past of religious harmony. West Bengal was developing as a member state of Indian Union for the past six decades and Bangladesh as an independent country, after its liberation from Pakistan in 1971. Cultural and linguistic sentiments are far more predominant in Bangladesh: Number plates of motor vehicles are in Bengali like most sign boards on street and boulevards. Tagore's "Amar Sonar Bangla"is its national anthem. Tagore himself, as well as several other Bengali celebrities like JC Bose the famous scientist, Amarthya Sen the world renowned economist, magical wizard Sarcar and several others hail from East Bengal and Bangladesh citizens are proud of this common legacy.

People of Bangladesh are far more passionately fired by patriotism, compared to their Indian neighbors. However, their state policies seem to be hardly supportive of such deep patriotic sentiments. Its bureaucracy, as in India and in several other developing countries, largely leans on the West and multilateral agencies dominated by it. The UNIDO and other UN agencies have a much larger presence in Bangladesh compared to India and the country makes much better use of this international cooperation. A typical sector is flood control and disaster management: Bangladesh has developed an extensive flood monitoring system with elaborate field measurement systems, hooked up to a powerful IT network at the national level. The website maintained under the UNDP project provides online information on water levels in the large network of rivers that criss cross Bangladesh territory. This is a far more productive project, compared to the computer literacy and other populist IT programs, perused by several Indian States, including West Bengal and Kerala. However, with regard to industrial development and technological capabilities, Bangladesh visibly lags far behind India, and its economy is driven virtually by imported energy. In energy exploration, power development, and in several areas of frontier as well as traditional technologies, India and Bangladesh could be working together to great mutual advantage. However, there seems to be bureaucratic impediments on either side of the boarder and these have nothing to do with any kind of religious sensibilities or popular sentiments.

Pattern of development in the education system in the two countries is similar: In both countries, higher education is seen by the people, especially the elite classes, as a passport for a decent permanent jobs in the national economy or for migration to developed countries. Medium of education in Universities is English and those in pursuit of upward social mobility prefer English medium schools, right from the Kindergarten. Science and humanity schemes dominate university education, accounting for about 80 percent of total enrollment in the collages affiliated to the public universities. Universities were under the stranglehold of the colonial bureaucracy and even the creation of a University Grants Commission (UGC), soon after liberation, has hardly helped the higher education system to become responsive to the real needs of Human Resources Development as perceived by the society. As Professor Miyan had noted in a recent review paper published in Bangladesh Studies: "Universities in the country went through a chaotic situation and there was hardly any professionalism in managing the the educational programs prevailing in the universities. The faculty members, generally, were not attentive to their duties; and, in most cases, classes were not held on schedule due to political unrest and in-fighting among the faculty members, the students and administration that created a condition where the universities could hardly function as academic entities...."

Such critical comments and situations are reflective of the Indian situation as well, and under these suffocating situation in Bangladesh, several academics like Prof Miyan, who were striving to restructure the public universities in Bangladesh, on more rational lines and in the spirit of the national liberation struggles of seventies, saw the opening up of private universities as the only possible step. According to Prof Miyan and his compatriots, the campaign for private universities was a disparate step, and not one of academic adventure. He is critical and conscious about of the commoditization maneuvers bydeveloped countries to create a free global market for higher education as a commodity, when he says: The challenge for the developing countries is to resist being flooded by second-rate, substandard courses that do not match their cultural setting or socio-economic needs. The new act for regulating the the establishment of Non-Government Universities passed by Bangladesh National Assembly in 1992 was in pursuit of this undeclared objective and the act was amended once in 1998 in order to improve its efficacy.

Non-Governmental Universities may be seen as the Bangladesh equivalent of India's deemed university scheme administered by its UGC: Working experience of neither appears to have delivered the desired results, despite the progress claimed by their protagonists. Non-Government Universities in Bangladesh are, generally, far more accountable to the students, in completing the courses and conducting examinations on time. Quality of instruction has reportedly improved and curricula rendered more responsive to the real needs of the job market. However such claims of improvements are not uniform and are not reflective of the general experience. Nevertheless there was a massive expansion of private universities in Bangladesh during the past decade. According to UGC statistics there were 53 private universities in the country in 2004 with about 63,000 students. Among those pursuing higher specialist education, six percent went to private universities, eleven percent was with public universities and the balance sought the routine science and humanities streams. However, overseas employment markets continue to distort the entire education system in Bangladesh as well, like in all developing countries including India.

IUBAT founded by Prof Miyan, no doubt, is one of the few success stories among the private university initiatives in Bangladesh, sponsored and promoted by academics: It has consolidated its position during past one and a half decades. IUBAT has exchange programs with over fifty universities abroad, conducts more than a dozen courses in engineering, agriculture and health services, and enrollment has crossed the one thousand mark. It has moved into its own pukka premises, owns ten acres of prime land within the Dhaka development area for its campus, and possesses another one hundred acres of agricultural land in the rural districts earmarked for farm development and research. Most of the universities sponsored by big business have even better records of performance, but there are several others on the decline and under threat of takeover or closure by the UGC bureaucracy. A minimum of land holding and cash reserves in bank are being insisted upon by the Government, in order to ensure solvency of private universities, a proposition that is being resisted by their association: It seems to hold out the view that, fate of non-government universities should be entirely left to the market forces.

And, that hardly is any solution, while considering the larger interests of students and faculty caught under the nightmare of dying universities. Without the guarantees of appropriate safety-nets for the stakeholders, non-governmental universities and other teaching institutions engaged in longterm HRD are sure to lose the much needed credibility. And, education being an essential part of a longterm social process, chance of success is rather remote for partial and isolated reforms. These, in brief, are the lessons from the university reforms of Bangladesh.

24.08.07