Feature
Higher Education in Doldrums
Professor Abdul Mannan
The importance of education and higher education in particular for sustainable, endogenous development, for democracy and peace, for strengthening of the defence of peace as a human value, and further respect and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms can hardly be over emphasized. The far-reaching changes now taking place globally, and the entry of human values into society based on knowledge and information, reveal how overwhelmingly important education and higher education are. UNESCO (2001) noted that a renewal of higher education is essential for the whole society to be able to face up to the challenges of the 21st century, to ensure its intellectual independence, to create and advance knowledge, and to educate and train responsible, enlightened citizens and qualified specialists, without whom no nation can progress economically, socially, culturally or politically.
The global scenario of socio-economic development is changing as knowledge supplants physical capital as the source of present (and future) wealth. Technology is driving much of the process, with information technology, biotechnology and other innovations leading to remarkable changes in the way we like to work. It is changing our work life and work culture. It is changing our life.
As knowledge becomes more important, so does higher education. Countries need to educate more of their young people to a global standard. The quality of knowledge generated within higher education institutions and its accessibility to the wider economy, is becoming increasingly critical to national competitiveness. This poses a serious challenge to the countries of the developing world like Bangladesh-a country born out of blood, sweat and tears.
The taskforce report of UNESCO and World Bank (2001) on Higher Education in developing countries acknowledges the growing needs of higher education in developing countries. However the development and growth of higher education in developing countries did not get the needed priority. UNESCO and the World Bank acknowledge this and state 'this poses a serious challenge to the developing world. Since the 1980's many national government and international donors have assigned higher education a relatively low priority. Narrow and misleading economic analysis has contributed to the view that public investments in universities and colleges brings meagre returns compared to
investment in primary and secondary schools and the higher education magnifies income inequality. As a result, higher education systems in developing countries are under a great strain. They are chronically under-funded, but face escalating demand. Around half of today's higher education students live in the developing world. Faculties are often under-qualified, lack motivation and are poorly rewarded. Students are poorly taught and curricula underdeveloped. Developed countries, meanwhile, are constantly raising the stakes. Quite simply, many developing countries will need to work much harder to maintain their position, let alone catch up. There are notable exceptions,but currently, across most of the developing world, the potential of higher education to promote development is being realized only marginally.'
The observation of World Bank and UNESCO is a reflection of the state of affairs in Bangladesh. In many cases the condition of higher education in the country is at best quite chaotic. Amidst such a situation often our students from the university level competes successfully with students from many developed countries and show glimpses of their brilliance. Our faculties are often able to demonstrate their ability to conduct world-class researches. But these are often individual efforts rather than the result of proper planning of a good education system. The modern day universities in the Indian sub-continent had their beginning only in the middle of the 19th Century. In present day Bangladesh, this began in 1921 with the establishment of Dhaka University. In the early days of university education in this country as well as in the sub-continent, education was promoted as an instrument of social development and change. As a result the government had its university system spread over the country. Each of the former administrative divisions had at least one university and few government colleges affiliated to some of these universities. In Bangladesh today the university education is undergoing a revolutionary transformation in the sense that not only the government has planned to open up new universities but also convert some of its former technical institutes into technical universities. Alongside, it has also embarked on a very ambitious project of encouraging university education in the private sector. Public Universities can seldom realize their full potential. Politicisation inter wined with bureaucratic control, ignorance of merit in faculty appointment and promotion, starvation of funds has led public universities to the brink. Though such a state of affairs is not unique to Bangladesh, in the region the case of Bangladesh is a bit different in the sense no sensible and pragmatic efforts are being taken to arrest the continuous downslide of higher education in this country.
Private universities will never be alternative to public universities in this country in the foreseeable future. Private universities will be just playing a complimentary role and will fill in a very narrow void in the entire higher education system. Many private universities have their own problems. Some private universities with immense potentialities could not take off in real terms because some policy planners lacked vision and farsightedness. Some are run like business houses and other like government offices. In some of these seats of higher learning bureaucracy has becoming endemic thereby retarding its qualitative growth.
A modern university should be run by people with modern vision, open mind and progressive attitude. There are some who are trying to overcome these problems. However, the basic task of creating and disseminating knowledge in the field of liberal arts, humanities, basic sciences, social sciences, medicine, etc., will be the domain of the public universities for many more decades. Unless things improve dramatically within the shortest possible time Bangladesh will not be able to be a part of the global education system.
Higher education in Bangladesh, from administration to academic, needs a radical and fundamental change and reform. When our neighbours are emerging as economic, social and political powers to lead the world in next two decades we cannot afford the luxury of going into hibernation.
Bangladesh is positioned between two emerging titans of the 21st century-China and India. If it wants to get a share of the dividend of development of these two emerging titans a laid-back approach to the development and sustaining of higher education will be tantamount to committing hara-kiri. Immediate action to put the higher education back on track may lead us to the road to excellence and make the young graduates from our universities more competitive with their counterparts at least in the region. The sooner the national policy planners realize this the better.
(The writers is Professor of Business Administration, East West University)
|
