The 1973 University Ordinance of Bangladesh provides autonomy to several public universities, meaning that university authorities are solely responsible for managing their day-to-day affairs.
The philosophy behind autonomous university administration is to allow uncontrolled thoughts and expression of the brilliant and perhaps beautiful minds -- the university faculties -- against potential negative influences of the political government.
The autonomous university model is philosophically sound, practiced in different parts of the world, and historically worked well for us in the past. However, the model's effectiveness lately appears questionable for various reasons.
While university authorities complain about political interference in university administration, many faculties (if not all), overtly or covertly, practice partisan politics for ideology or personal gain.
Such a dilemma at the highest level of the educational sector has far-reaching consequences for the nation and its future generation, demanding urgent attention.
While all levels of education are important, elementary and university education is perhaps the most important. Elementary education shapes the first impression on kids' minds, while a university education touches youth's minds just before they start contributing to the nation.
So, a university education is more than just gaining academic knowledge -- it includes building personal character and developing critical cognitive skills to distinguish right from wrong.
Students gain academic knowledge by reading books and attending lectures, while they build their character and cognitive skills through experiential learning, especially seeing their faculties or surroundings.
So, suppose the faculties utilize the power of autonomy to be unbiased and ethically strong. In that case, students will learn and implement those practices in the future. However, suppose the faculties utilize the power of autonomy to spread politically-biased thoughts and implement unethical practices with impunity. In that case, students will implement those malpractices in the future.
That being said, we often complain about different forms of malpractice in various sectors of society. But we rarely ask how our younger generation learned those malpractices and why they consider those practices to be the norm.
Undoubtedly, our educational system and environment are partly responsible for this. Look at our knowledge- and character-building centres, the universities; many are often the focus of discussion -- but rarely for the right reasons.
Financial corruption, nepotism, sexual harassment, and political and communal bias -- all sorts of malpractices -- are frequently reported in the media.
While outsiders only read the news or learn about malpractices from secondary sources, students gain first-hand experiences. Many even take advantage of or fall victim to those practices during their student life.
As a result, many students learn about those malpractices and get used to them. So, it is no surprise to see those malpractices carried forward in today's society.
At the same time, if we recognize that the learning environment of a university is deteriorating, we should not have any ambiguity about the problem's primary source and where to intervene.
Indeed, numerous media reports and newspaper editorials have highlighted the deteriorating university environment and different forms of malpractice by faculties -- but have wrongly identified student partisan politics as the root cause of the problem.
The contributions of ineffective university administration and faculty partisan politics to the deteriorating university environment are rarely discussed and still considered taboo to some extent.
Such discussion is critical because faculties are role models for students; they teach and manage university administration.
Most faculties perform administrative duties as additional responsibilities, while teaching and research remain their primary responsibilities. The government cannot directly terminate a university faculty from her/his job.
Therefore, if faculty feel political pressure from outside, they can relinquish their administrative position and focus on teaching and research.
But we rarely witness such an action. Instead, many faculties actively practice partisan politics and seek political backing to hold administrative positions. The practice has continued for so long that it has become a new normal, impacting the nation.
Beyond philosophical dilemmas, faculty partisan politics is unethical, especially when both students and faculty are involved in partisan politics. Suppose student Maria is a supporter of party X and faculty Dr Gilbert is a supporter of party Y.
Given Bangladesh's confrontational political culture, can Dr Gilbert evaluate Maria's academic works without bias? What should one do if they agree there is a conflict of interest? Perhaps they can excuse themselves from assessing that student's work.
But this is nearly impossible for our Bangladeshi universities because not one or two students and teachers but many are in partisan politics. Yet, faculties are evaluating their students' work as business-as-usual.
It can only mean two things: Faculties do not perceive this as a conflict of interest, or even if they perceive it as such, they choose to ignore it. None are desirable for the nation.
So, how to solve this problem?
Faculties think that the government should do everything correctly first, and everything will be in order. However, faculties forget they are the ones, not the politicians, entrusted to enlighten the nation.
We also forget that it is not politics but education that is the backbone of a nation.
So, we must repair the education system, especially the university faculty recruitment and training system, and ban any form of faculty partisan politics in our universities. At the same time, the government must ensure a suitable learning environment for universities.
The universe runs on a simple yet fantastic principle called “trade-off.” If we want our universities to be autonomous, university authorities must sacrifice the aspiration of partisan politics.
Providing autonomy and simultaneously allowing faculty participation in partisan politics is a disaster for our universities and the nation. The faculties also need to be selfless and think for the betterment of the country.
I sincerely hope that our brilliant minds will reflect, correct themselves, and live up to the name of a teacher and, in turn, help build a scholarly society with strong character.
Shekhar R Biswas is a professor of ecology at East China Normal University in Shanghai. Before, he studied or worked at Khulna University, Bangladesh, the University of Toronto, Lakehead University, and York University, Canada.