EDUCATION-BANGLADESH: Private Sector Thrives at Students’ Expense

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Tabibul Islam

DHAKA, Oct 8 2003 (IPS) - Exploiting the need of droves of students looking for higher education, private universities in Bangladesh are raking in cash. But their many critics accuse the parallel instruction structures of being little more than glorified coaching centres.

Amir Ashraf, a third-year student of computer engineering at the impressively-named Bangladesh-American University, illustrates just one of the difficulties students face in such a system. His classes, he said, like those of many other students, are held in different buildings in a congested area of Dhaka. ”It takes up to half an hour to go from one building to another,” said Ashraf.

When students like Ashraf get to their classes, it is all they can do to hear the lecturer over the din of traffic outside, the high ambient noise from the city’s downtown business localities, and the noise from nearby restaurants and clubs.

Worse, if Ashraf and his classmates want to buttonhole the teacher after class to clarify a point or two, they more often than not find it impossible. One estimate is that nine out of 10 private universities have no permanent or full-time teachers, who are instead lured from the state-run universities to take lectures.

These hires, working to packed schedules to fulfil weekly or monthly contracts, are widely criticised for having no commitment to their students, whether like Ashraf or his counterparts in the state-run universities. ”Our studies suffer as teachers suddenly stop taking classes at the end of their contract period,” complained Pranesh, a student of Queens University.

The practice affects the state-run institutions too. A Dhaka University lecturer pointed out that their standards of education are falling as teachers in these universities find little time to prepare for their lectures because of lucrative contracts – these can mean lecturing in three and even four different private universities in a day.

Nor are these the only problems with a parallel system that seems designed to maximise student throughput. A student in the second year of a bachelor of business administration course, Rahim, poured out his regrets at having entered the system:

”The poor standard of education, lack of library facilities and above all, lack of competent teachers fills me with despair about my future. I made a blunder by taking admission into this university existing in name only,” he said.

Rahim explained that his parents sold their land in order to meet the fee requirements so that he could study further. A student in a state-run university, which is subsidised by the government, will pay between 250 and 300 U.S. dollars to complete a four-year honours course in any subject.

In comparison, Rahim and Ashraf will need to make available about 5,000 U.S. dollars and even up to 8,000 if they choose the private university route.

The lack of adequate physical space – the concept of a campus with attendant facilities is almost non-existent in this scenario – is the most serious concern. In the upmarket Banani residential area, north of Dhaka, four private universities are now housed in the same commercial tower. That is apart from the nine along the nearby Kamal Ataturk Avenue.

Inadequate real estate in th city drives the private universities to bizarre lengths. The private ‘Bangladesh University’ on Iqbal Road in the heart of Dhaka shares its space with a preparatory school. A library, common room and recreational facilities exist, for the most part, only on paper.

S Ahmed, a third year student of the private Ahsanullah Science and Technological University in Dhaka said that after attending one class he and his classmates often must wait a couple of hours before the next lecture. ”As we have no common room, we have to pass time in the corridors of the building, or on the road, or in restaurants.”

Still, driven by demand, the two dozen-odd private universities which have sprung up in the densely populated capital city of Bangladesh are among the 50 that now operate in the country. In 2001, there were just 16. The estimate is that some 40,000 students are enrolled in these universities, pursuing higher education.

Even so the gap between capacity and demand is large, and is growing. The 17-state run universities in Bangladesh at present have nearly 90,000 students on their rolls, but their limited seats can absorb only a small percentage of the nearly 300,000 students who emerge from Bangladesh’s higher secondary schools, armed with certificates and looking for degrees.

The numbers also explain why many students go abroad to study. Up to 80,000 Bangladeshi students are estimated to be studying abroad, with at least 30,000 in India alone.

Hence the effort by the education authorities to expand the scale of education in the country, and to look to the private sector to provide a solution. Now, with industrialists and business houses behind the establishment of private universities, it is becoming clear that what was to be a solution is only adding to the problem.

Some of the strongest criticism has come from the ruling apparatus. Bangladesh’s state minister for civil aviation and tourism, Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin, has said that ”it will be suicidal if businessmen continue to treat education as an industry”.

He suggests a five-year moratorium on giving approval for the establishment of private universities – most of those currently approved do not meet the criteria set by the country’s University Grants Commission, which oversees the private sector too.

Joining the chorus of criticism has been the vice-chancellor of South East University, Dr Shamser Ali. He too sees the earning of fees as being the objective for a section of private universities, and not the provision of a genuine education infrastructure. ”They are not universities,” he said of the private institutes, ”they are merely tutorial homes or coaching centres.”