The decline of Dhaka University

By RATER ZONAKI
Column: Humanity or Humor?

Published: May 20, 2008

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Hong Kong, China — Universities are supposed to provide students with modern knowledge, teach them critical thinking, and help them formulate a philosophy of life. The knowledge they are taught -- both academic and practical -- is expected to be useful to the students in their own lives, including their academic and professional careers and their roles as responsible members of society.

Among about two dozen public universities in Bangladesh, the University of Dhaka is considered the best, and attracts most attention from various segments of society. There is a popular notion prevailing in the university that DU draws the attention of the international community as well, including academics and intelligentsia. Yet the experience of innumerable suffering students is just the opposite.

Multiple problems, in fact, are ruining the careers of many students and teachers at the university. A student's experience at the university is likely to begin with confusion as to when he will be able to complete the degree he is striving for.

In Bangladesh, a student who makes it to university is typically from a struggling middle-class family, and embarks upon his education with a view to having a satisfactory job at the end of it. A student goes to DU, the country’s largest university, expecting to have his dreams fulfilled. Yet from the beginning he must face a reality inconsistent with his goals, due to the politicization of the institution, irresponsible behavior of administrators, narrow-minded teachers and endless interpersonal clashes.

A student must carefully consider which teachers he will cultivate, which political group he will identify with, what channel he will use to gain undue benefits from the teachers and what means he must use to attain his goals. He must make the right decisions in all these areas, because scholarships and other benefits are allocated selectively based on political identity, family relationships and friendships, as well as some other factors that must be identified by the novice student.

The school’s top teachers, including the vice chancellor and other senior professors, are so busy with their political agendas that they cannot concentrate on the academic calendar. Ultimately, the consequences are shouldered by the innocent students and the brilliant committed teachers at the university, who in fact constitute the majority of the academic community but have little influence within it.

A female student at DU, having secured an undergraduate degree, shared her experience with this author. She requested that her name not be used as she is still hoping to complete a graduate degree. She finished her undergraduate degree only in 2001, though originally she should have completed it in 1998 as per the academic calendar. Then she was admitted to the Master of Philosophy program, which should have been completed in two years. Yet the course was prolonged until May, 2008. During the course she was compelled to bribe university staff to the tune of 6,000 taka (US$88 ), not a small sum in Bangladesh.

Most senior teachers do not regularly attend their scheduled classes, students say. The higher their status, the more egotistical they seem to become, in sharp contrast to the devoted and committed teachers.

One DU lecturer, also requesting anonymity, said several hundred young teachers are currently faced with a severe crisis in their careers, as the military-controlled government has stopped the regular allocation of scholarships for their higher education abroad. This is partly due to the failure of the vice chancellor and politically motivated senior teachers to secure these funds for their own staff, and partly due to the military plan to divert these funds to the newly designed Military University in Mirpur of Dhaka.

Dhaka University as an institution has experienced all the political twists and turns on the historical trajectory of the country. In the past, its academic excellence surpassed the boundaries of the continent to win acclaim from the international community. The destruction of this vital institution will leave a deep negative imprint on the politics and society of the nation. But it cannot be denied that this once vibrant and respected academic institution is in decline, thanks to the neglect and misguided behavior of its administrators.

(Rater Zonaki is the pseudonym of a human rights defender based in Hong Kong, working at the Asian Human Rights Commission. He is a Bangladeshi national with a degree in literature from a university in Dhaka. He began his career as a journalist in 1990 and was engaged in human rights activism at the grassroots level in his country for more than a decade. He also worked as an editor for publications on human rights and socio-cultural issues and contributed to other similar publications.)