Innovative institution
GRIPS started its journey in 1997 as a government-sponsored graduate school and research institute. Its degree programs are designed to attract outstanding students and prepare them for distinguished careers in the policy world. More than half of the students, reportedly, hail from nearly fifty countries, mainly in Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and under the umbrella of different scholarship. The rest, possibly, from Japan. The people working for governments, central banks, customs and other branches in developing countries are usually invited to the institute for useful insights in development related issues. The courses are pointed to the people who would be engaged in policy making of the country -- present or future.

In GRIPS, there is also Foundation for Advanced Studies on International Development (FASID) to help Japan's economic cooperation have a greater impact on the developing world, as well as to implement its foreign aid programs more effectively. One of the key components of FASID is to support the training for development of professionals in developing countries and cooperation for research conducted abroad. In addition to the Masters program, there is a Ph.D program for outstanding students jointly offered by FASID and GRIPS. In a broader horizon, the program is called Graduate Program in International Development Studies by FASID/GRIPS in collaboration with JICA and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan.

The GRIPS has about 70 full-time faculty members drawn from a variety of background including public officials and executives in private companies. This has been done with a view to complementing academic courses by professional expertise and experiences. By and large, the aim is the cross-fertilization of Western theories and expertise with the historical experience of Japan and other Asian and non-Asian western societies. Both GRIPS and FASID are endowed with enviably rich intellectual inputs. To mention particularly about FASID, eminent economists of the world like Professor Yujiro Hayami, K. Otsuka and K.Kalirajan, along with a batch of brilliant academicians, are deeply engaged in developing the design, implementation and teaching of the courses so conferred upon. The Graduate Program also has the provision for Guest Lecturers and over the years, eminent economists came here to present their views on different issues of development. To mention a few of them , for example, are Pranab Bardhan, Peter Lanjouw, John Strauss, Kaushik Basu, Gustav Ranis, Hubert Schmitz, Jock Anderson, Takamasa Akiyama, and other famous faces in the world of development economics.

Courses and curiosities
Now, I come to the reason behind my interest in an institution like GRIPS. It is not that GRIPS is the only one such institution in the world that augers well. In fact, most of the institutions outside Bangladesh, including India, developed innovative ideas and systems which are healthy in terms of generating, inter alia, human capital. The courses offered should meet the curiosities that students have to live with from day to day experiences. The courses must conform to the questions that arise in the minds of the students of and on. I met a few Bangladeshis in GRIPS who are studying here and I had the opportunity of attending some of their classes too. These fellows tend to feel a fantastic development in their perceptions about development economics they were taught by their teachers. Back in Bangladesh, allegedly, they failed to fulfill their curiosities. Maybe this is due to time constraint or non-availability of good teachers on the courses offered. I reckon that the courses here are so designed as to make them meaningful in their practical life. The development economics course comprises not only theoretical underpinnings but also the practical experiences of countries like Japan, East Asian and other countries and the ways and means of meshing them with the emerging conditions of the developing countries.

Right and left vs right and wrong
This, for example, contrasts sharply and sordidly, with the development economics course contents in our country. In Bangladesh universities, we tend to cover four-fifths of the syllabus drawing on growth models and the radical views on development. The relative tilt towards right or left depends on the alignment of the teacher in designing the course concerned. There is no doubt that our students need to understand the neo-classical growth models and the radical minds either to accept or to reject. But an overshooting could turn out to be counter-productive and that what apparently is happening. Students are not aware of the potentials and the pitfalls of the models that would be applied in the case of Bangladesh. Nor are they trained on the role of culture, values, and community in the growth process. For example, to give a specific example, can Bangladesh follow a path of Japanese putting out system under the aegis of community participation and based on mutual trust and interactions? Has market penetration robbed communities of their real values at the moment or, conversely, could communities complement market in working better through enforcement of contracts? Should that happen, villages could be connected with global markets through the development of trading networks in rural areas, facilitated by massive investments in physical and human infrastructure by the government. In that case -- a la Yujiro Hayami -- migration to cities and the consequent congestions and inequalities could be contained. Or, say, what should or could be role of government and market in Bangladesh context. A cross-country comparison could make students make-up their minds and detect what is right and what is wrong with their rightist and leftist teachings!. The models of economic development should move across countries keeping in view the existing cultural and social parameters of the countries concerned.

My visits to villages in Bangladesh who are vying for vegetables production and marking them for urban markets or the ways that vegetable exporters uphold contract growing, seemingly, point to a resemblance with the systems working in Japan and East Asia in few aspects. But till researches on this are tabled, I postpone my conclusions on this issue. Suffice to say, however, that economics development courses in developing countries should contain elements of comparative analysis-based conclusions. Get the best things suited to your socio-cultural and political needs and leave the unsuitable ones.

Promotion and punishment
In our case of developing a development economics course, I presume, the alignment of teachers to a particular paradigm, sometimes, get more weight than the relevance of the lectures to the real life of the students or to the realities of the economy. Again, contrary to our outdated system, the courses here in FASID/GRIPS and also elsewhere are to the tune of time and completed timely. A failure on the part of a professor to do so is considered as a shame -- may be called culture of shame! In some of our cases, on the other hand, the reverse seems to hold true. For the powerful teachers, allegedly aligned to administration, failures might be the pillars of promotion -- may be called culture of sin!.

Public to perish?
The graduate institutions in Bangladesh, and I am talking particularly about public universities, must rise to the realities in and around us to avoid the decay looming large on the horizon. Unfortunately, I witness no wish for a warming up exercise among some of our colleagues. They come to the university, but not to the classes. Again, even if they kindly go to the classes, disconcertingly, they take no care of the quality of contents they confer upon their students. While in GRIPS/FASID programs or in any outside university teachers are on time there, in my country, students are seen waiting in the corridors to beg a class from them. Teachers become the cause of tears for students hooked on to session jam and admission scam.

Bottom line
The bottom line is that institutions matter for development. Borrowed capital/technology is necessary condition for growth but institutions for facilitating such capital/technology-led growth is a sufficient condition. Be it Japan or East Asia, educational institutions played a pivotal role in development. Bangladesh can, possibly, learn many lessons from them but definitely two should be on board. First, maintaining macroeconomic stability and looking outward, and second, provisions for good quality higher education. And for that to happen, all the institutions in Bangladesh should go under reforms before the fruits of globalization can be harvested home.

Human development is not only a function of the number of institutions or literate individuals but also of the innovative characteristics of the institutions; of transparency and accountability; of wisdom and responsibility of teachers and students; of the vision of the government about the future of the country. Our higher educational institutions are yet to rise to the needs of the occasion. Only on that score alone, Bangladesh needs to walk millions of miles before it gets to good sleep.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.