The University Grants Commission (UGC) was established by our founding father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as the statutory agency in the field of tertiary education to oversee higher education in Bangladesh. It later acted as an autonomous apex body in higher education under the President Order No 10 of 1973.
The UGC is in charge of awarding funding, upholding standards, and directing the growth of the nation's higher education institutions. Additionally, the UGC is essential in advancing our higher education's globalization, innovation, and research.
The UGC has a wide range of functions and powers to regulate and support higher education in Bangladesh. It needs to be further empowered to look into the irregularities in expenditure and the recruitment of teachers and general members on the staff in all the public and private universities.
Empowerment and recruitment process
The UGC needs to be further empowered and strengthened to overcome its limitations and challenges, and in order to perform its role more effectively and efficiently. Some possible ways to achieve this are:
Increasing funding: In order for the UGC to be able to satisfy the expanding demands and requirements of higher education, the government could enhance the budgetary allocation for the UGC. The UGC can also investigate additional financing options such as fees, contributions, grants, loans, endowments, and others from various parties involved, including the students, parents, alumni, companies, industries, foundations, etc.
Enhancing autonomy: The government needs to provide the UGC more freedom in terms of formulating policies, allocating funds, selecting members, and approving projects, programs, and plans, among other things. Additionally, the UGC must retain its impartiality and integrity while fending off political pressure and intervention.
Enhancing quality: By developing and executing efficient quality assurance and accreditation systems for higher education institutions and programs, the UGC can raise the standard of education. For the purpose of evaluating and enhancing quality, the UGC should create and implement standards, criteria, indicators, benchmarks, and other measures. It must periodically examine and evaluate institutions and programs in higher education and adopt remedial action and quality-control measures in response.
Promoting research: In order to develop a culture of research and innovation in higher education, the UGC should support publications and research activities in multiple domains. For research initiatives, programs, centres, networks, etc, the UGC could offer funding, facilities, incentives, prizes, recognition, etc. Support for international and domestic research collaboration and exchange as well as the dissemination of research results would also nurture a better research culture.
Collaborative work: Fostering academic mobility, collaboration, exchange, and recognition between domestic and international colleges and institutes will help make a more international higher education. The UGC needs to focus on increasing Bangladesh's higher education system's worldwide exposure.
One of the most important aspects of empowerment is the hiring process for academic staff positions in universities. The hiring procedure ought to adhere to the following suggestions:
Hiring for leadership positions in the UGC and universities
The Ministry of Education and the UGC may establish a search committee comprising renowned academics, researchers, academic administrators, and members from concerned parties.
This search committee will set the necessary qualifications and experiences for hiring the chairman, the members, and the vice-chancellor. They may issue a public announcement or call nominations from the qualified and interested persons. Based on the applications, the search committee can prepare a short list to select the best candidates.
The search committee may also take interviews or call for presentations to assess the candidates. They might recommend issuing a gazette notification from the concerned ministries or from the chancellor to recruit top officials of UGC and university.
Hiring for academic staff positions in the universities
The UGC and the vice chancellor may form a selection committee comprising academics or officials from the UGC, universities and the concerned ministries.
The selection committee may set necessary qualifications and experiences for hiring academic staff positions in the universities. They may issue an advertisement or issue public notification in this regard and may prepare a short list to pick the best candidates from the applicants. The selection committee can conduct examinations or interviews or request presentations to find the best candidates.
The UGC and the vice-chancellor may approve the selection committee's recommendation and appoint the academic staff positions in the universities accordingly.
Further understanding the UGC’s role
The UGC plays the role of a facilitator for the universities and a mediator between the universities and the government. It has some limitations for overseeing and supporting institutions of higher learning as well as in the matter of increasing standards, research, and globalization. However, the UGC must overcome these limitations to fulfill its role effectively. The UGC must therefore be strengthened and supported in funding, autonomy, structure, and advantages such as globalization and excellent quality.
Additionally, open, competitive, inclusive, and participatory selection processes should be used for leadership positions in the UGC and academic staff positions at institutions. I believe it is important for the commission to have the power to take legal action against irregularities in the recruitment of university teachers, admissions of more students than the seats available, financial irregularities, certificate trade, and irregularities in development projects of universities, without meddling with the autonomy of the universities.
Dr Ferdous Zaman works as Secretary, University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC). He is also the Secretary General of the Dhaka University Sociology Alamni (DUSA) and Member of Bangladesh Press Council (BPC).
