4 major Bangladesh universities to continue irregular courses

Major public universities have decided to continue their irregular courses titled ‘evening courses’ or ‘weekend courses’ ignoring the University Grants Commission’s recommendation to stop those to ensure quality education for their regular students.

Dhaka University, Chittagong University, Rajshahi University and Jahangirnagar University authorities decided to continue with the courses as the significant number of teachers of the respective universities argued that they were serving the nation by creating skilled professionals through such courses.

The academic council of Dhaka University on Monday decided to continue evening courses, said its registrar Anamuzzaman. The university has memorandum of understanding with the government in this regard, he said.

Dhaka University teachers said that the government entities signed memorandum of understanding with public administration department, criminology department and banking department of the university to provide irregular courses. 

Following the seven-hour meeting, the university vice chancellor Md Aktaruzzaman said that advertisements offering evening courses in different forms would remain suspended for five weeks till a policy for such courses were framed.

After getting the policy, the fate of the other irregular courses would be finalised assessing the need of the state and the capacity of the university, he said.  

He did not mention about the exemption given for the evening courses running under the memorandum of understanding between the university and the government agencies. 

The university syndicate in its meeting on Tuesday night approved the academic council’s recommendation.

Members of a committee formed by Rajshahi University to give opinion on the fate of both the evening and weekend courses offered by 16 departments and two institutes of the university told New Age that they would recommend for continuing those to the university authorities soon.

Chittagong University vice-chancellor Shireen Akhter and Jahangirnagar University acting registrar Rahima Kaniz said that the universities had no evening courses but weekend courses, which would be continued as the UGC’s notice had asked the universities to stop ‘evening courses’.

‘Civil and military bureaucrats take professional training in such weekend courses offered by the business faculty,’ Shireen Akhter said.

The university grants commission in December in a notice asked the public universities not to run evening courses saying that continuation of such programmes had hampered regular activities of the public universities.

Following the notice, several public universities such as Islamic University, Jagannath University, Comilla University decided to stop evening courses.

UGC chairman Kazi Shahidullah said that the public universities run under the President’s Orders of 1973 — Dhaka University, Chittagong University, Rajshahi University and Jahangirnagar University — had tendencies of ignoring the recommendations of the commission arguing their greater autonomy ensured in the orders.

Some teachers of these universities were misusing the autonomy ensured in the orders for their personal benefits, he added.

The regular students and many teachers of Dhaka University, Chittagong University, Rajshahi University and Jahangirnagar University had been demanding to stop irregular courses at the universities for years arguing that the teachers of such courses pay more attention to those as the lion’s share of the expensive courses went to their pockets.

The Dhaka University formed five-member deans’ committee report presented to Monday’s meeting said that 69 evening courses, including, professional courses, master programmes, diplomas, and certificate courses, were continuing at 26 departments and nine institutes of the university.

Two of the committee members said that departments under business faculty charge up to Tk 2,88,000 and the 70 per cent of the fees were shared by the teachers of such courses and the departments, faculties/institutes and university get only 30 per cent of it.

For completing a four-year bachelor’s course, they said, regular students paid Tk 50,000on an average.   

Science faculty dean and also the committee convenor Tofail Ahmed Chowdhury told New Age that the teachers of the courses were the beneficiaries so they were for continuing those.

‘They don’t even maintain proper documents and orders for running these courses,’ he added.

Another committee member Sadeka Halim, also social science faculty dean, said that the massive intake of students in the evening courses seriously affected studies of the regular students, research works and the university as well.

‘When on an average 6,000 students are enrolled annually in regular courses, 7,000 students are enrolled in different types of evening courses,’ she said.

Additional number of teachers had not been recruited for running the extra classes in the evening, she said.

‘Such courses do not even give financial benefits to Dhaka University as the nominal share that the university gets from the courses are mostly spent for paying additional utility bills for those courses,’ she added.

But, the advocates for the evening courses, especially the business faculties and institutes, argue that such courses help developing professional skills in the job markets.

Rajshahi University teachers and students said that the 16 departments and four institutes of the university offered both evening and weekend courses charging between Tk 50,000 and Tk 2,00,000.

They said that the students in the regular courses need to pay between Tk 25,000 and Tk 30,000 for the four-year bachelor courses.

‘All the teachers of the university want to continue the evening and weekend courses arguing that those courses do not clash with the regular courses,’ said the university pro-vice-chancellor Ananda Kumar Saha, also convener of the university formed committee on evening courses.

Teachers of Jahangirnagar University and Chittagong Univrsity also said that some teachers were more interested to take weekend courses offered by the university and teaching at private universities than taking regular courses.

UGC chairman Kazi Shahidullah said that the commission would closely monitor the decisions taken by the universities.

‘If needed, we will investigate the permission procedures of the irregular courses,’ he said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net