Dr Mashiur Rahman, economic affairs adviser to the Prime Minister, urged private universities in the country to help improve the quality and world ranking of Bangladeshi universities, far behind in world university rankings.
“With a few public universities, it is easier to assess the quality of the universities. Now we have many private universities. It has become essential to improve the quality and ranking of the universities and the subjects they are teaching,” Mashiur said, as the chief guest addressing a workshop, “QS Masterclass on University Rankings and Rating”.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) organized the event sponsored by World University of Bangladesh, at Buet’s Council Bhaban on Tuesday.
World University of Bangladesh Vice Chancellor Dr Abdul Mannan Choudhury, QS Intelligence Unit’s Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia Regional Director Ashwin Fernandez, and Buet VC Dr Saiful Islam, were present at the event.
Terming the primary and secondary level education of the country “strong,” Mashiur said tertiary or higher education was “weak” and suggested some changes.
“If one acquires basic knowledge of the sciences – including mathematics – and language, it is easy to access the higher level of education. The basic training of how to extract information from a book, should be given to students,” he suggested.
He emphasized that to tackle the matter, a scientific and logical investigation of the problem of “low university rankings” is important.
Urging universities to introduce mathematical knowledge, communication skills, different languages, and basic new technologies to existing courses at universities, he said this would help Bangladesh “gain recognition by global standards” in the world of higher education.