A four-member team headed by a pro-vice chancellor of Dhaka University has been to Finland to observe and purchase lifts for the institution. The news comes within days of a report on the position of universities in Asia. In a survey of 300 universities in the continent, 40 Indian universities and 12 Pakistani universities have found place. No university in Bangladesh has made it to the list, which is embarrassing for all of us in this country and is reflective of the slide in education at our higher institutions of learning.
And now we must deal with the bigger embarrassment of these DU officials making that trip to Finland not as a result of any invitation to a seminar or a scholars’ conclave but to buy lifts for the university. In this day and age, it is not hard to handle such issues long distance and online. And such matters are handled by people who are well-acquainted with the technical aspects of them. In other words, those lifts could have been ordered in Finland from Bangladesh, by the contracting company assigned the job by the university, without the necessity of a trip by academics all the way to Helsinki.
Must academics -- and a pro vice chancellor is a teacher -- undertake such a trip and thereby draw public ire for the poor sense of responsibility thus demonstrated by a university? To what extent university teachers, whose job entails classroom teaching and out-of-classroom research on the subjects they deal with, are equipped to handle matters that are beyond their expertise? In these present circumstances, there is a simple conclusion that citizens will draw: that trip to Finland will have been one of inexplicable action. We have had similar pointless visits abroad before by officials at different levels and this one is but a continuation of that bad trend.
When austerity is the huge requirement today, when citizens are confronted with rising prices, there is a grave need for a tightening of the belt in every area of administration
Not too long ago, there were news reports of government officials planning visits to India to study the ways in which midday meals were prepared for school children in our neighbouring country. It was bizarre. Were we to suppose that cooking was unknown in Bangladesh, that no one knew how to prepare lunch for school children? And that is not all. Instances aplenty have been there of delegations travelling to various regions of the globe to come by knowledge of development strategies undertaken there, which strategies would then be applied in Bangladesh. Having attained independence more than five decades ago, are we to inform ourselves that our officials and administrators are yet to develop the skills necessary to promote national progress?
Too much of waste has been eating away at our already meagre resources -- and for years together. In the late 1990s, the government settled on the idea of transforming Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television into autonomous organizations. The move was welcomed by broad sections of society. A committee comprising reputed individuals from both the government and the media was tasked with working out the details of the ways in which the independence of radio and television could be undertaken. That was fine. But what was disturbing was that the committee members felt they had to visit some countries in order to acquaint themselves with the working of the media there.
The team visited India and the United Kingdom at government expense, which was a huge waste of resources. It should have been for the government to inform the committee that it could very well do its work in Dhaka through studying the relevant documents pertaining to the Indian and British media. But that was not done and so the team went visiting Delhi and London. The members of the committee, on returning home, did of course prepare a report which was submitted to the relevant authorities at the ministry of information. That report was never acted upon. It was not made public. It was simply pushed under the rug. The bottom line: public money had been squandered on those trips, with little to show for results.
We have had reports of the national airline taking people, at its expense, on inaugural flights to such global capitals as Rome. Why should such trips be happening at all? And why should journalists, of all people, cheerfully accept offers of such free rides that for them become an unexpected holiday? And now we have this lift-buying trip to Finland on our list of embarrassments. In circumstances where the nation is yet dependent on foreign aid to undertake or finish projects, the propensity of mapping out overseas trips is not just embarrassing but scandalous as well.
One wonders who sanctioned this trip. One would like to have an explanation from the Dhaka University authorities on the necessity of the trip. The visit will involve a colossal amount of foreign exchange, even if it has been paid for by the contractor -- and that at a time when worries assail us about the country’s foreign exchange reserves. When austerity is the huge requirement today, when citizens are confronted with rising prices, there is a grave need for a tightening of the belt in every area of administration, in government and universities alike. Besides, the expenditure to be incurred on this Finland visit could have been more productively utilised in promoting the welfare of the students of Dhaka University.
The imperative today is for academics at Dhaka University, beginning with the vice chancellor, to convince the country that they are prepared and indeed well-placed to restore the intellectual force which once was a beacon for the institution. Our young need focused teaching in the classroom; our teachers are called upon to devote themselves to purposeful research that will enable them to come level with scholars at universities in the region, if not in the world.
We need university teachers to write books, to engage in discourse on all those subjects which reflect the political, cultural and intellectual aspirations and growth of a nation. But nations do not broaden their horizons when individuals one considers to be scholars decide that their job is to go abroad, study the quality of lifts and come back home after purchasing those lifts. Such junkets slice away at the reputations of those from whom we expect wisdom, from whom we expect a light to shine on our country.
Since when have lifts and elevators enhanced the quality of education at universities anywhere?
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune
