Feature

On private-public university

A.A.M. Mostofa Saikh Chowdhury

Any discourse on merits and demerits of private and public university should be logical and fact-based. We shall heavily edit if any attempt to denigrate any institute is made by any writer.
Editor
Star campus

I do not know actually why the writer is so attacking in his writing about private universities of Bangladesh. I am doing my BBA in a pioneer private university of the country. I can proudly say that my dream was to get admitted into this particular university. But it's true I did get chance in a public university's business institute.

I am inviting you to my campus to meet all my friends who never attended any admission test at any public university. It may come as shocking news to you but you should know that in my university in every semester at least eight (8) students are fighting for a single seat. In your article you wrote about the infrastructure you have in public universities. But 120 students in one classroom is not a healthy picture as far as I think.

You wrote about your best teachers. But we keep reading in newspapers that most of your teachers don't take classes regularly as they remain otherwise busy. In our university more than 47% of the faculty members have post graduate degree (Ph.d). All the faculty members have been educated in different North American universities. You will be surprised to know that our university does not take fresh graduates as teachers. They need proper experience and educational qualifications. But in our public universities only fresh graduates takes classes properly and other senior teachers are busy with their consultancy or political activities.

In our university we have research facilities also. What do you think about research? Do you think that it needs acres of land? No, you need some resources. Go to your library and tell me how many useful journals do you have there for research. In our library we have more than 150 online journals. When I visit many journals I never find the name of any public university of Bangladesh. A good university needs three types of facilities.

1.Resouce
2.Good students
3.Good teachers/faculty members

I must say that we have all the resources accept our own campus, not yet. But we shall move out to our new campus soon. It is almost 80% completed.

I was astounded when you mentioned in your article that our teachers gives us extra marks! I am requesting you to visit our university and see for yourself how difficult it is to get a pass mark here. What I believe is that you wrote your article based on your belief and not on reality. But shouldn't you investigate something like this before writing? For your information, our university was founded by a foundation just as many other private universities of the country were. The founders do not take any profit from here. All these institutes are not for profit-making organisation. As an educated person you must know that to run an university you need to have money and that's why private universities take money from the students. In case of public universities, the government provides the funds and that's why you don't need to pay money. In private universities the authorities distribute the profit by giving us scholarships.

As you have already graduated from BUET, I want to know an answer from you. Why most students of BUET nowadays don't want to do M.Sc. rather they want to do MBA in IBA or at some private university?

There are more than 54 private universities. Of them only 16 were established before 2001.You have to give them time to improve their quality. The universities which were established before 1997 are all doing very well. They all are providing quality education. You should remember that money is a factor. They don't get money from the government. So you have to give them time. When they will mature they will give you the proper fruits. My university however produced 2000 graduates so far. Go to any multi-national company and you will see how well they are doing there. You wrote that job market doesn't matter but it does matter a lot. If private university students didn't get quality education then why the employers are satisfied with their performance?

I am again requesting you not to attack private universities in such a way. Do an investigation, understand the real picture, be neutral and only then you will be able to write a good article.

(BBA Program, North South University)