In line with the recent emphasis of the University Grant Commission to run mandatory IQACs and consistent assessment in multiple aspects of higher education, faculty evaluation systems have now become an integral component in most of the private universities.
Unlike public universities which largely depend on government allocated funding, private universities operate almost entirely on student tuition fees. This financial structure of government funded universities seems convenient for the students with low- or mid-low income, however, critics argue that it often lacks quality education.
On the contrary, the tuition fee based model that private universities adopt creates stronger demands for accountability and quality assurance. Students who directly finance their education expect responsible and competent course instructors, and obviously, are not likely to settle for any less.
Institutions therefore establish monitoring mechanisms to ensure the effective and desired performance of the teachers inside the classroom.
One dominant metric lies at the centre of this framework: The student satisfaction score. Alongside the traditional system where teachers assess students’ academic performance, in the current context of Bangladesh, most of the private universities have a policy where students are also given the opportunity to evaluate their teachers’ overall quality.
In principle, this is a reasonable and necessary practice. A teacher with consistently poor evaluations can be held accountable by the department, while a strong evaluation score may reflect the satisfactory competency of a teacher.
These scores are not symbolic, rather they directly impact a teacher’s annual key performance indicators (KPIs) which in turn are directly connected to salary increments, incentives, contract renewals, and promotions.
Public university teachers often take their job as granted, as their employment is considered permanent within the security of government employment policies. Additionally, promotion structures frequently prioritize research publications and foreign degrees while overlooking teaching quality in most of the public universities of Bangladesh.
Although research excellence is undoubtedly important in academia, an excessive focus on publications often sidelines the most immediate responsibility of a teacher, which is effective pedagogy.
As a former student of Dhaka University, I firsthand experienced how the absence of classroom accountability can severely damage students. In 2021, I took a course where the teacher conducted only two classes throughout an entire semester.
In a bi-semester system, a course typically requires around 20 to 24 classes to complete. Yet despite this extreme negligence, there were no visible administrative consequences for the teacher because students had no structured mechanism to evaluate faculty performance at the end of the semester.
This reality is precisely why teacher evaluation systems were introduced and why they still matter. In a country where the education system remains highly dependent on summative assessments and teacher-controlled grading, students often feel powerless against unfair academic treatment. A transparent evaluation mechanism can therefore serve as an important balancing tool.
However, despite its good intentions, the student satisfaction system has gradually evolved into something far more complicated and, in many cases, highly unethical. The problem is not the existence of evaluation itself. The real problem is how these scores are now being manipulated and weaponized in practice.
I have been teaching at a private university for the last two and a half years within a system where students evaluate teachers centrally at the end of every semester. My experience across seven semesters and an average of four to five courses per term showed me both a dramatic fluctuation in these scores and their frequent failure to reflect actual teaching quality.
Student satisfaction scores are often assumed to be direct indicators of good teaching. In reality, many hidden variables shape these numbers.
Some students evaluate teachers based on grading leniency rather than instructional effectiveness. Others respond emotionally after receiving lower marks than expected.
In many cases, teachers who do inflate grades while assessing the assignments, presentations, and midterm examination papers eventually end up obtaining a surprisingly poor evaluation score, as the students receive 60% of their marks before they submit the evaluation scores, and already assume their upcoming grade in that particular course.
This creates a dangerous structural dilemma for teachers. KPIs, yearly increments, promotions, and even job security are strongly tied to maintaining high evaluation scores. Once students become aware of how the faculty evaluation score can create an impact on the faculty member, the evaluation system can easily turn into a tool of intimidation.
Teachers who enforce attendance policies, maintain grading fairness, prevent plagiarism, or demand serious academic effort often have to compromise a good evaluation score from the students at the end of the semester. The message becomes painfully simple: Give us the grades we want, or your evaluation score will suffer.
Under such a context, many teachers eventually discover an unofficial survival strategy. Instead of maintaining rigorous academic standards in assessments, they begin inflating marks, relaxing assessments, avoiding strict disciplinary actions, and minimizing academic pressure simply to secure a favorable evaluation score.
A teacher who gives easier exams, awards generous grades, and reduces academic demands often receives significantly higher satisfaction scores than a teacher who genuinely challenges students intellectually. As a result, the system slowly rewards popularity over pedagogy.
The irony is disturbing. A mechanism originally designed to improve educational quality can unintentionally incentivize grade inflation and weaken overall academic integrity. Teachers who attempt to uphold standards may become professionally vulnerable, while those who compromise academically often remain institutionally protected through impressive evaluation numbers.
This hidden reality is rarely discussed publicly because student satisfaction systems are usually presented as unquestionably progressive for academia. Yet the issue is not whether students should evaluate teachers; they absolutely should. The issue is whether these scores should carry such disproportionate administrative power without proper contextual interpretation.
Student feedback should function as one component of evaluation, not the sole determinant of a teacher’s professional worth. Classroom observation, peer review, course rigour, teaching innovation, assessment fairness, and long-term student learning outcomes should also matter equally. Otherwise, universities risk creating a culture where academic standards are quietly sacrificed in exchange for numerical satisfaction.
ASM Kamrul Islam is a lecturer at the Green University of Bangladesh, where he also coordinates the Center of Excellence for Teaching and Learning (CETL).