February 14, 2020
Changing the shy world of adolescent girls
Back in 2017, we had an opportunity to build a small and experimental toilet in Jhalokati, with the simple intention of helping adolescent girls in a rural school who had no real toilet to avail.
December 21, 2019
Academia’s global standing: The research imperative
Recently an M Phil student, studying service management of hospital patients, emailed: “Sir, I am doing descriptive type of cross-sectional study and I am not testing any hypothesis.
September 19, 2019
Listening to Student Voices
Academic programmes across the world are becoming increasingly innovative, competitive and challenging. They are responding to changing times. There is also the realisation that, built in the right...
June 13, 2019
Teaching load: The missing link in higher education quality
Ask faculty members in the country’s universities what would motivate them to devote more time to research and you will hear one common answer: decrease present course loads and class sizes. Both...
April 26, 2019
Why we must build specialised research universities
“It is most difficult to get people on the path to research and publication. That culture, that appetite, that scholarly commitment has eroded considerably. [They] LOVE the microphone, they HATE...
April 4, 2019
Return on research: Academia's new challenge
Discussions about research in Bangladesh's higher education institutions (HEIs) have become animated and contentious in recent times.
February 16, 2019
Future readiness of Bangladesh's higher education institutions
The Daily Star's February 3rd issue carries a story on page 5 about the acute teacher shortage at Khulna Medical College.
December 9, 2018
Leading by inspiration
The nation is now in the grips of another approaching election. A flickering hope among many is for an inspirational leadership that energises, enthuses, and leads competently, and with good...
April 16, 2018
Whither law enforcers?
Once again, a headline in The Daily Star grated: “Fifth-grader 'raped' by headmaster.” Another headline literally stung: “RMG worker gang-raped in moving bus.” Violence against women...
March 9, 2018
The widening scourge of sexual harassment
Violence against and violation of women result from “some of the worst forms of discrimination” that continue unabated in a variety of ways: mistreatment, harassment, lewd stares, groping, maiming,...