The scenario in public universities in terms of research prospects is quite disheartening. The universities in the country are falling behind in the research arena compared to the different universities in the world. The world ranking of the country’s public universities has also fallen in the last few years.
No public universities of Bangladesh could earn any place among 1,500 universities in global ranking. This is a great shame for our country, as the public universities and their rankings represent us in the world. The country’s top public universities are at the bottom of the world rankings.
The lack of research initiative reflects badly on the quality of higher education at public universities. More funds needs to be allocated for public universities to encourage research work. The authorities also need to create posts for researchers so that young researchers will be enthusiastic to come into the sector where senior professors will guide them.
The lack of funding discourages even students from science background from going into research. If the fresh graduates are incentivized with the salary of a lecturer, many students from different backgrounds will compete to do research.
While infrastructural development is important
universities must also pay attention to
research in order to improve quality of higher
education in the country
Public universities allocate between 1 and 5 percent of their total budget for research whereas ideally the allocation for research should be at least 10 to 15 percent of the total budget. Education Minister Dipu Moni recently criticised the university authorities saying that they were more interested in constructing buildings rather than patronising research work.
While infrastructural development is important universities must also pay attention to research in order to improve quality of higher education in the country. The government must ensure that a larger portion of public university budgets are
allocated for research. The government should also take up other initiatives to incentivize researches such as the introduction of grants and
academic awards.
