Higher education serves as the foundation for a nation’s intellectual, social, and economic growth. Public universities in Bangladesh, which have a significantly low acceptance rate due to a rigorous admissions process, are leading the way in this mission as they recruit the best.
However, a student-driven teacher assessment system, which is already widespread at private universities in Bangladesh and holds faculty members accountable for their professionalism, has not been implemented by these institutions despite their crucial role. Implementing such a system to guarantee academic achievement and to ensure proper checks and balances is a must.
In current tradition, faculty members at public universities are not accountable for student evaluations at the completion of a semester, in contrast to their counterparts at private universities. In addition to creating a blind spot in the academic system, this lack of feedback allows faculty members who are incapable of effectively carrying out their duties efficiently a way out. In order to make sure that teachers continue to be committed to creating a culture of active learning and academic rigour in their classrooms, a teacher evaluation system is more than just a formality.
The issue is made much more concerning by the assessment system used in Bangladeshi universities, which heavily emphasizes summative evaluation. Transparency and impartiality have been serious concerns in Bangladeshi universities as faculty members can directly affect a significant portion of students' marks if they want to.
Anecdotal evidence from students refers to biases in grading, where certain students receive preferential treatment while others are ignored. This perception of partiality causes students to lose faith in the assessment system and begin to believe that their efforts may not be adequately rewarded. If teacher evaluations were incorporated, students would have a voice in holding teachers accountable, ensuring more equitable and unbiased assessment practices.
As a faculty member at a private university, I have firsthand experience with the teacher evaluation system. At the end of every semester, students assess various aspects of my teaching, including course delivery, fairness in grading, punctuality, and overall engagement.
These evaluations provide a quantitative measure of my classroom effectiveness and push me to maintain teaching quality. Moreover, the results of these evaluations have significant implications for my career progression, as poor scores can lead to formal accountability measures, including performance reviews and KPIs. When the time for increments or promotions comes, these scores play a big role.
Nevertheless, things are very different in public universities. As public university teachers receive the same facilities as government employees, such as job security with a fixed salary structure, they usually lack the motivation to prioritize teaching quality in classrooms. Even though research and foreign degrees are important in academia, nevertheless, they are overemphasized in public universities, reducing the focus on classroom performance. Research achievements certainly improve an institution's ranking, but they shouldn't come at the expense of teaching duties. Teachers at public universities are supposed to balance their responsibilities in both research and teaching, which they fail measurably.
If teacher evaluations were incorporated, students would have a voice in holding teachers accountable, ensuring more equitable and unbiased assessment practices
I experienced an apparent example of this system's shortcomings in 2021, while I was a student at Dhaka University. For a whole semester, one of the faculty members in my department took just two classes, so we had to figure out the course contents on our own. The teacher was expected to take 20 to 24 classes to complete the full course, so it does not demand words to explain how difficult it was for us to complete the course. With no surprise, the result of the course was catastrophic for the entire batch.
The faculty member's carelessness, however, went unpunished. If a faculty member evaluation system was functional, this wrongdoing was not likely to get away so easily. Unfortunately, this is a not-so-uncommon scenario in public universities of Bangladesh.
There has been a dispute that student evaluation systems can be misused or put teachers under unnecessary strain. Although these worries are genuine, they can be resolved by a clear and well-thought-out evaluation process. Peer reviews, administrative supervision, and objective performance indicators are a few examples of elements that can be added to student feedback to make the system more equitable and balanced.
The concerns are understandable, but faculty members should see such feedback from the students as a chance for their professional development rather than perceiving the process as a harmful one.
Introducing teacher evaluations in public universities has always been a demand by the students, but the administration has never agreed to it. However, this is no more a matter of convenience, rather it is a necessity now. As the higher education landscape in Bangladesh evolves, public universities must adapt to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.
Implementing a student-driven evaluation system would be one important step in developing a more open, accountable, and student-centered academic environment. It's time for public universities to accept this shift and give teaching excellence equal weight with their dedication to research and institutional honour.
ASM Kamrul Islam is a former student of the Institute of Education and Research, University of Dhaka. He is currently a lecturer at Green University of Bangladesh.