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Private universities in Bangladesh

Mahdin Mahboob

The system of private universities is a relatively new concept in Bangladesh. Due to the ever-growing demand of educational institutions at the university level and the fact that the existing public universities could not meet the need, the Government of Bangladesh passed the Private Universities Act in 1992. Starting off with a handful, the number of private universities has grown rapidly and stands at 54 to date, compared to the 21 universities in the public sector.

Part of the reason of course is the fact that we have one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, considering the growth of our population from 45 million in 1971 to the current 145 million in a span of just 35 years.

There are various reasons why private universities have become so popular in Bangladesh. Among the various factors that govern a person in choosing an institution for higher study, the most dominant one is the availability of the desired major or program. The fact that the number of seats in the esteemed public universities in a given program (say BBA) is very limited, students these days tend to opt for a lesser known institution rather than study some subject which apparently does not have any prospect in the long run. Private Universities have capitalized on this situation by limiting the studies to a few disciplines (BBA, MBA, Computer Science, Engineering, Medicine, etc.), which are very much in demand in the job market.

According to a University Grants Commission report, the standard of education in most of the public universities is not up to the mark due to reasons including student politics, irregular and interrupted classes and examinations, unsatisfactory teacher-student ratio, etc. On the other hand, all these problems are completely non-existent in the private universities of Bangladesh.

Prior to the introduction of private universities, students not being able to get a 'seat' in the esteemed public universities had very few options left to them. Some of them went abroad to study the majority of them going to India and few to USA, UK, Australia, etc. Eventually, our country had to suffer from losing huge amounts of hard-earned foreign currency and also the brain-drain factor to a large extent.

The private universities have directly helped in saving foreign currency as well as brain drain. Large amounts of scholarships are also available for students with brilliant academic results.

However, private universities still remain to be popular amongst the students with financial constraints. More need-based scholarships should be given to the students to give opportunities to a higher number of deserving candidates.

Although much has been said about how some of these universities have failed to deliver what they had promised, it must also be remembered that the whole system is still in its development stage. In the United States, as well as in many other countries of the world, private universities and colleges are as good as the public ones, if not better at times. MIT, Harvard, Yale Princeton and Dartmouth are all private institutions!

It can thus be summed up that private universities are doing a great job. Many of them are functioning excellent as a matter of fact, and they require our support to turn out to be model educational institutions.

Email:mahdin.mahboob@gmail.com

China's Great Wall holds the key to quantum future

The Great Wall of China is poised to play its part in pushing back the boundaries of quantum cryptography. Later this year a Chinese team, which has just broken the record for transmitting entangled particles, will test the feasibility of satellite-based quantum communication using the wall.

The Great Wall's new role was revealed after Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and his colleagues successfully transmitted "entangled" photons through more than 7 kilometres of the Earth's turbulent lower atmosphere without losing the photons' fragile quantum properties.

Quantum entanglement allows two particles to behave as one even if they are very far apart. Measure the property of one particle and you instantly know the property of the other. Entanglement allows you to transmit secure encryption keys over a public channel, but until now the furthest anyone had transmitted entangled particles through air was about 600 metres. This was achieved by researchers at the University of Vienna, who sent entangled photons across the river Danube (New Scientist, 28 June 2003, p 15).

Depending on atmospheric conditions, the amount of air between a base station and a satellite in low Earth orbit is equivalent to 5 to 10 kilometres of air at ground level, so the Chinese experiment brings satellite-based quantum communication within reach.

Source: New Scientis