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New proposal for 7 affiliated colleges

Published : Monday, 30 September, 2024 at 12:00 AM  Count : 263
Masum Billah
Seven government colleges of Dhaka City under NU were affiliated with the University of Dhaka on 16 February 2017 at the behest of the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Though it was done with a view to removing some rooted problems and to increasing the value of certificates, it created various types of problems for the University of Dhaka as well as   the authorities of these seven colleges. It is well known to us that the DU has inflicted with its own problems, the inclusion of seven more colleges with extra about two lac students and more than one thousand teachers. DU also experiences constraint in infrastructural facilities. These colleges have been plagued with problems since their affiliation. To find out a peaceful and reasonable solution, Professor Kamrul Hassan Mamun, a professor of the department of Physics who thinks of the problems of education of Bangladesh, has put forward a proposal. 

He has proposed to establish a Collegiate University for these seven colleges in particular and some more colleges can be included and the style and form of this Collegiate University will be like Tribhuban University of Nepal or Kalkata University of West Bengal, India. Now, what a collegiate university means. It is an exclusive typeof university which decentralizes its administrative works among itsaffiliated colleges along with keeping one campus as its central administrative works. If more than these seven colleges get included in the proposed Collegiate University, one of them can be turned into the center for administration. And these colleges will offer only 3-4 years honours courses, not intermediate or degree pass course. The teacher employment will be similar to the process of university teachers' recruitment, not the colleges' teachers on deputation or transfer. The criteria of their promotion will be of standard university like type. 

The minimum criterion to recruit teachers will be Ph.D degree. Honors will be of four years terminal degree. Then for masters will have limited seats that will be enrolled through admission test. Only the central administrative campus will offer masters like Kalkata University. Masters is a specialized degree which may not be for all.  And the teachers who teach masters must have Ph. D degree and high caliber and active in research. The current practice shows the lowering position of master's degree that must be reformed. 

Some teachers think opening honours and masters in 700-800 colleges and their  approval given by NU  was a crime as the requisite number of teachers are not available.  these colleges offer HSC and degree pass courses also with   only 4 or 5 teachers who have  deal with all the courses which seem to be a farce. All these teachers  cannot afford to conduct classes in honours and master classes. Still they have to do it just to undermine the degree of honours and masters offered under National University. This game must be stopped. Higher education must be open for all but that does not mean ' taking or giving such type of higher degrees' should be accepted. If someone working in an office or doing a business but wants to have a master's degree. Alternative opportunity should be for them. Maybe through night colleges or online. However, no higher degree should be ' so easy, so cheap  and so farcical' as it happens today. 
 
Maybe, only 50 colleges can be allowed to teach honours courses under NU and the rest will offer HSC and degree pass courses. Similarly, there will be some exclusive colleges where HSC will be offered and these colleges will be the feeder institutions of universities. As soon as this will be announced, the entire student community and all the political parties will raise their voice that this is a blueprint to squeeze the opportunity of higher education. 

We cannot really afford to constrict the scope of higher education. We cannot also afford to undermine the degrees of higher education in the way as we run today. What can we do in this regard? All those want to receive higher education, quality must not be compromised at any cost. The current tradition gives us idea that memorizing or preparing some notes without attending any classes and having any clear idea about a particular topic, one can easily pass honours or masters. This easy way of achieving an exclusive degree must be stopped. 

Some teachers opine that it would not be wise to add more colleges with these seven colleges because   a good relation has already developed among the students and teachers of these colleges for being with each other for eight years.  It is proposed that Dhaka College can be treated as administrative center of the proposed Collegiate University and other six will be collegiateas it is the oldest and traditional college among these seven.  

The system will give motion to academic and administrative activities and students' suffering will be lesser than before. However, some teachers give their opinion against this decision. They think developing collegiate university may create some more problems. It may create session jam and the seven traditional colleges may lose their glorious tradition and the value of certificate mayfurther deteriorate.  Manystudents also put their comments on social media. They think if the proposed plan gets materialized, it will help remove the session jam that has caused serious problems to the students and untie the knot of administrative issues. 

The writer is President-English Teachers' Association of Bangladesh (ETAB)



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