Feature

An educational institute with a difference

Sajid Huq

The city of masjids is on its way to becoming the Boston of South Asia, the city of Bishyabidyalays. A Indian journalist friend of mine on his return from an assignment in Bangladesh was remarking on the strangeness that is the private university phenomenon in Dhaka. Apparently, there are more than 50 private universities in the country. The number sounds as ridiculous as the lack of originality of their names. Therefore, to say that BRAC University was my automatic choice would not be a non sequitur. For “BU” turned out to be a very unique institute in several rather impressive ways.

Firstly, the whole idea of the summer residential semester at their satellite campus in Savar, 90 minutes or so from Dhaka, is unique. This is a semester in which many elite kids who are otherwise shuttling from their air-conditioned, servant-served homes in the Gulshan-Banani-Baridhara tri-state enclave to equally luxurious private university spaces - are made to live independently for two months - simulating a boarding school or an American college town experience. I hear from ex-students that many went back home after the 2 months of living alone, knowing how to cook basic meals, do their own laundry, and in general be more disciplined and emotionally independent. Not to mention the students got to party a lot!

The courses the summer students took were also quite unique. It was a set-menu: Bangladesh Studies, Ethics, and English Language Proficiency (El-Pro). Bangladesh Studies (which I taught) was a multidisciplinary exposure to the history, literature, folk-life, religion, economics, public and foreign affairs of the Bangladeshi state. Something else I liked about the course was a larger focus on South Asia. The course on ethics was largely an introduction to various German philosophers taught by an aging Germanophile professor.

The way El-Pro works is that during admission, students take a test of proficiency in the English Language and are assigned a score out of 8. For the rest of their time in BRAC, courses ranging from basic writing and speaking skills in English to more advanced compositional skills are meted out to students depending on their level. What's more impressive is that thanks to Dr. Anisuzzaman, of Bangla Studies at Dhaka University, BRAC U plans to implement a mandatory Bangla language class in the same model as El-Pro, the idea being that Bangladeshis of this generation need to be perfectly bi-lingual and undermine the substantial divide that seems to exist on university campuses between Bangla-Medium and English-Medium kids. Of course, the divide is also a reflection of class differences, a harder problem to address.

Another high-point for me as well as for the students were the numerous field trips that BU organized. Students, many of them for the first time got to see various historical sites - from 8th century Buddhist Bihars (a Bihar was something like a monastery cum university) to World War II cemeteries. They also obtained first-hand exposure to BRAC's impressive micro-credit and healthcare services.

(Sajid Huq, Ph.D.Candidate and Teaching Fellow, Columbia University)