World university rankings become a subject of discussion or debate in Bangladesh when announced. Usually North American, British, and Australian universities dominate the list and occupy the top positions. But there are universities from India and Asian countries, including China and Japan and some other East Asian nations, that secured places in the global top 500 list in recent years.
None of Bangladesh’s 34 public and 70 private universities could secure a place among the top 500 institutions around the globe in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) over the last few years.
Every year when the ranking is announced, we see some sort of debate in media and academic circles. The private university top bosses usually do not make any comment on this issue. But the public university bosses try to explain that these university rankings are deliberately slanted towards Western countries.
They fail to understand the fact that Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong have been doing well in these world rankings. In the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2014, there were a total of 24 universities in the top 200 from these countries.
ARWU considers every university that has Nobel laureates, field medalists, highly-cited researchers, or people whose papers were published in reputed journals such as Nature, and Science. In addition, universities with significant amount of papers indexed by the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are also included. Universities are also ranked by several indicators of academic or research performance, and the per capita academic performance of an institution.
One of the major problems of our universities is the way of conducting research. Private universities are at their elementary level in research activities. The quality of research is an issue in the public universities too. Two major research activities in the public universities include doctoral research leading to a PhD, and faculty research leading to publications.
Also, there are research activities for completing MPhil degrees and small research activities like thesis writing for students from their final year of Master’s.
Over the last few decades, university teachers have been saying that their budgets for research activities are being squeezed by the University Grants Commission (UGC). When the accommodation of regular students in the residential halls is a serious problem, one cannot expect that the public universities can arrange infrastructure for doctoral students.
Doctoral students cannot be given working space either. Because of this lack of office space or accommodation problem, students prefer to stay at home instead of spending their time in the campus. However, in many other countries, doctoral students teach or work as research or teaching assistants.
Here in Bangladesh, PhD students are not allowed to teach, and thus they cannot develop their skills to become teachers or researchers. However, it is said that some teachers (usually the chairperson of a department) let doctoral-level students take some classes so that they themselves can get more free time.
Faculty members need to publish research articles in the journals of their own universities, or other reputed journals in home or abroad, which is a requirement for their promotions and positions. But there are other ways of getting promotions and positions, and the major one is to get involved with academic politics. Another very important criterion is seniority.
There is no strong mechanism to monitor the quality of the articles for publication. UGC can come up with a guideline for categorising the journals published by different universities. We also hear complaints from the teachers about the lack of resources for research, including reference books in the libraries, and access to academic databases.
Every year, thousands of students graduate from the universities of our country. This is surely a success. But academics agree that the quality of education is now a severe problem, and main concentration should be on this issue. Research activities are often ignored by university authorities. However, adequate funding for research activities is not always available, as the teachers said.
Every year, the university ranking is announced, and every year, frustration grips us as none of our universities get a place among the top 500 list. It is known globally that most of the public universities in Bangladesh have to struggle just to maintain an academic environment that is congenial for teaching and learning activities. They have to remain closed for long periods of time due to student violence, campus politics, and anti-academic activities.
Yet, the universities should think of participating in international comparisons to know their real standard and highlight the problem areas. And before this, UGC and the universities themselves should plan a major structural overhaul of the existing system.
Promotions and positions of teachers must be conditioned upon scholarly work. If Bangladesh wants to develop economically, it must ensure that its universities are ready to achieve at least East Asian standards. A standard university system will give the economy the much needed productivity boost by supplying a skilled workforce to the market.
