Free our higher education of corporate greed
According to newspaper reports, 2,90,347 admission forms were sold against only 6,035 seats at Dhaka University. This has brought in Tk 2,90,347,000 for the university, at the rate of Tk 1000 per form. Last year, Jahangirnagar University earned Tk 20 crore selling 3,59,962 admission forms against 1,889 seats. According to news reports, this gave them a profit of Tk 12 crore. Besides these recognised and popular public universities, there was a GST (general, science and technology) cluster admission test for 22 other public universities, which brought in Tk 44 crore. Adding up the total money earned from selling admission forms by public universities countrywide will easily amount to over Tk 100 crore.
Students need to bear many types of expenses besides the price of admission forms. For example, many students buy forms for more than one unit because it is uncertain which one they could get into. Moreover, because of the structure of question papers for the admission tests, students enrol in coaching centres to prepare for them after their HSC results are out. For such two- or three-month-long courses, they have to pay at least Tk 10,000. Students from rural areas going to Dhaka or other divisional towns for this training have to spend another Tk 20,000 to Tk 30,000 to pay for food and residence. There are expenses for guide books and notes at coaching centres, too. All in all, the business of university admission tests is a big one.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. On top of this, a large majority of those who apply for admissions fail to reach their goal because of the limited number of seats at universities. The students who failed to get a seat at DU, for instance, altogether paid around Tk 28 crore in hopes of having a chance to study at the university. It shows that this large amount of money earned by Dhaka University and the similar amounts earned by other public/government universities are from students who received not one penny of service in return. And this lack of a minimum ethical standard should be deemed abnormal, even in our modern capitalist society.
The students who fail to get in accept it as a result of their "lack of talent" and do not raise any questions out of embarrassment. In truth, public university admission tests are similar to the lottery business. And university admins' success in doing this year after year lies in the market mechanism, which is that a large number of children want to study at a select few universities. They are ready to pay the money just for the right to stand in line. Because of the crises in the job market, young people hold the belief that a certificate from a certain university with brand value will help them get a good job four years on. Then again, employers also often do not want anything less than a Masters degree for any position.
Private universities, on the other hand, have increased in number to meet this large demand for certificates of higher education.
And how are private universities being run? These were and are being run partly by teachers belonging to public universities. These teachers were taught at public schools and universities in order to use their knowledge and skills for the interest of people, not to conduct business. We see that private universities are founded not only using private capital, but they also get investment in the form of human resources made up of public money.
On the other hand, a step-by-step privatisation process has been internally underway through various means in public universities. This becomes apparent through the introduction of more and more training courses, evening departments, skills development centres, etc on public university premises. Public university teachers are also investing more time teaching at private universities or running skills development centres, doing consultancies for private firms, etc. They have less time for research, which severely reduces the quality of the public universities that employ them.
The UGC is leading in this altering of the character of higher education. It sowed the seed of commercialisation of our higher education in 2006 through its strategic paper planned for 20 years. The strategic paper provided direction for public universities to gradually stand on their own feet regarding income.
Under the World Bank's prescription, higher education in Bangladesh is headed towards falling into the hands of the rich and, to some extent, towards the middle and lower-middle classes being trapped in debts. Higher education is becoming the means of making individuals richer, leaving behind others who are told they will benefit from the "trickle-down effects" of an extractive economy. Humanistic, ethical, cultural, and national values and sensibilities will be at the sacrificial altar of a free market shaped by anti-people ideologies. Higher education needs to urgently be freed from the chains of relentless profit-making of the most irresponsible type.
Alamgir Khan is the editor of Biggan O Sangskriti (a Bangla magazine on science and culture).
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