REINVENTING UNIVERSITIES : HIGHER EDUCATION

IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY*

Gowher Rizvi**

Introduction

The theme for my talk today is ‘Reinventing Universities’. [1] Faced with the challenges of globalization, most institutions and organizations– markets, corporations, governments, the media and the manufacturer– have had to reinvent themselves. Universities are no exception. They too must change. However, the question of reinventing universities has up until now not been explicitly discussed. The universities are in many ways different. Universities, like religious institutions – the church, temple, mosque and synagogue – are perhaps the oldest continuing institutions of human civilization; and they have largely managed to remain relevant by adapting themselves in varying degrees to the changing circumstances. Universities have shown a remarkable ability to evolve with the growth of knowledge and have avoided obsolescence by adapting their curriculum, pedagogy and institutional arrangements. This is in many ways the source of their resilience. On the other hand, its critics have pointed out, and not without some truth, that undergraduate education has not changed much since the inception of the first the four-year degree programs in Bologna (1088) and Paris (1180), almost a thousand years ago. They point to the fact that universities change slowly, reluctantly and remain an anachronism in a rapidly changing world. The deliberative faculty of self-governance institutions and the need for faculty consensus in decision-making have ensured that changes are invariably slow. However it is arguable that this is probably also their strength. It enabled the universities to resist many passing fashions or changes for the sake of change. But at the same time they cannot escape the challenges posed by globalization. Like other societal institutions, universities must respond to the challenges of the new knowledge-based global society. To remain competitive and relevant, universities must not only constantly innovate and strive for global excellence but they must build on their strong foundations and traditions. Quality, innovation and excellence will be the hallmarks of successful universities. The success of our society will depend on the success of our universities.

My talk today is organized around three broad set of questions. First, in a world where distinction between home and abroad, national and international, and local and global has become largely irrelevant and where knowledge and scholarship is benchmarked by global standards, there is no room for mediocrity. The universities in Bangladesh cannot afford to be left behind. The challenge for us is how to build world class universities – whether public or private – that will produce graduates who are global citizens and internationally competitive. [2]

Second, inherent to the establishment of world class institutions, is academic and operational autonomy of the universities. How do we reconcile the imperative of institutional autonomy with public accountability? What is the role of the government in the field of higher education? How does the government regulate the universities? What are the mechanism for controlling quality and standards? And how do we ensure that quality education is accessible to the academically brilliant students irrespective of their financial or social status?

And finally there are questions that pertain to the funding and sustainability of the universities. The demand for higher education has expanded exponentially; and as our economy expands the need for highly trained graduates will increase sharply. The cost of funding quality higher education has increased phenomenally. Historically universities have been funded by the public exchequer. But today higher education must vie for public resources with the competing claims of poverty alleviation, health care and primary and secondary education. What are the alternate sources of funding the universities? How do we eliminate the two-tiered society in which the ‘haves’ have access to quality higher education in private institutions, and the ‘have nots’ are forced into public universities where the degrees are not worth the paper on which they are printed?

There is a crisis of higher education in Bangladesh. While there are a number of outstanding institutions in Bangladesh, it is also an incontrovertible fact that many of the universities and institutions of higher education provide education that is mediocre at best. The graduates of many of these institutions are poorly trained and are inadequately prepeared to compete for jobs or take advantage of the opportunities opened up in a global world. Indeed scarcity of funding for higher education is a problem in Bangladesh as in other parts of the world. Given the competing demand for resources in the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education, in addition to the compelling needs for health and other parts of the social sector, it is unlikely that governmental funding for universities from the public exchequers is likely to improve. Increasingly, quality higher education will have to be catered through public and private sector collaborations.

Not only is there a real crisis in the university system resulting from inadequate funding but there is also the problem of unequal access to quality higher education for those from the historically disadvantaged and economically depressed groups. Although the public university tuition fee is heavily subsidized by the government and is in theory virtually free for qualified applicants, the reality is somewhat different. Because most of the desirable institutions are located in the urban areas (and some of them are private and charge substantial fees), higher education institutions have built-in mechanisms that discriminate against students who are poor and are from the rural areas. In short, quality education is beyond the reach of many of the academically gifted students and they are thus consigned to a life of mediocrity and waste.

Another striking dimension of the crisis is gender inequity in higher education. While women are performing better in most public examinations and receiving higher grades, the number of women in the best institutions is disproportionately low; and the inequity becomes ever more blatant in graduate programs. There are built-in structural impediments denying women access to quality education. While it is comparatively easier for men to move from rural areas to find boarding houses and hostels in cities where the best academic institutions are located, such opportunities are both limited and socially restrictive for women. Moreover, many middle class families in Bangladesh are making considerable sacrifices to send their sons abroad for higher education; comparatively very few girls are given the same opportunities. The lack of access to quality higher education is reinforcing the traditional subordinate status of women in our societies. Gender inequity is best evidenced by the highly disproportionate representation of women in decision-making positions both in the public and private sectors, even though women constitute more than half of the region’s population.

The crisis of higher education is also reinforcing the problem of brain drain. At a time when the government is committed to creating a digital Bangladesh and the country can easily become an important a center of information technology and a destination of global corporations for the outsourcing of skilled and semi-skilled jobs, it is also fast losing talented young people. Many of the students who go abroad to study do not return (at least not immediately). The establishment of a high quality academic institutions in Bangladesh will also will not only help retain talented young students in the country but will also act as magnets to bring back highly qualified Bangladeshi academics that are currently abroad but seeking opportunities to serve their homeland. The crisis of higher education provides both the backdrop and the impetus for my talk today.

The Case for Liberal Arts Education

My focus today is primarily on undergraduate education It is necessary to clarify the purpose and goals of a college education. Put succinctly, the purpose is to discipline the minds of the students, to enable them to learn how to solve problems and to teach them how to learn. The undergraduate university or college must impart quality and holistic learning - both within and across the disciplines - by establishing linkages between liberal arts, sciences and professional education, and by fostering a joy and passion for lifelong learning. The quality sought is not so much the mastery of a body of facts, but the attainment of skill in the conduct of inquiry and the strengthening and refinement the powers of reason, imagination and expression. It is to inculcate in students the power of rational reasoning: to give them the analytical tools needed for the pursuit of a profession, and to endow them with a capacity for lifelong learning. No less importantly undergraduate education must promote clear thinking and an ability to articulate clearly, coherently and cogently; to stimulate integrative thinking and learning through multidisciplinary studies that communicate across cultural and curricular perspectives; and to commit both students and teachers to a coherent and cohesive approaches to learning. A disciplined mind can distill information, formulate questions, sift through evidence, marshal arguments, separate the trees from the woods, organize the facts cogently, explain a phenomenon and draw conclusions based on the evidence. It is the most valuable skill that students will carry with them in whatever they choose to do. These ‘portable’ skills and disciplines of the mind have an enduring value and will enable students to cope with the changing demands and challenges of life. [3]

Scholarship is ultimately about the pursuit of truth. Liberal arts education equips the students with the tools to seek the truth that will free them from ignorance, superstitions, prejudices, narrow mindedness and bigotry. Liberal education frees the student from the existence of a robot whose mind parrots the inherited wisdom and prejudices. There will be no room for rote learning or the mindless and uncritical cramming of information. In short, a liberal arts education bestows upon the students a disciplined and an inquiring mind that can be put to use in any field of human endeavor. It is the most valuable skill that that a student can acquire, and if it is nurtured well, it will remain a lifelong asset.

It might be worth reminding ourselves today what Socrates (469 – 399 BCE) had said nearly twenty five hundred years ago: that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’. Liberal arts education will give one the opportunity to lead a life of reflection and self-examination; the space to discover oneself and to ask who are we what is important to us. It will enable our students to find their passions and to discover what gives them a purpose in life; and most importantly it will give the students the capacity to think for themselves; to discern between what is right and wrong; and to take responsibilities for their actions.

The importance of broad liberal arts education in knowledge-based developed societies is already well acknowledged. Its relevance to Bangladesh, however, is understood less well and perhaps it will be useful to marshal the arguments. Today, more than ever before, Bangladesh needs educated leaders, citizens and workers if it is to successfully compete in the global economy. Liberal arts education is critical to the balanced development of the country and to the success of its democratic institutions and processes. Liberal arts education helps to imbue students with a critical outlook; it helps to remove the narrow-minded worldview that inhibits social and economic progress; consciously equips them to deal with questions of ethics in private and public life; and enables them to become more effective in participatory democracy. And not least, such an education helps a country better define its own nationalistic goals and identity by examining itself in comparison to global perspectives. [4]

I am not arguing against professional, vocational or technical education– they are important and critical to our national needs – but rather to say that liberal education is not about imparting vocational training. In fact it would futile to do so. No academic program can ever hope to teach a student all the subjects that are necessary in their lifetime and even the most broad-based liberal arts education are is constrained by how much and how many different subjects can be effectively taught in the four years of college. [5] Knowledge is changing and growing constantly, and very often what is learned in colleges becomes dated before long. The purpose of the university is not to prepare students for a particular profession or to impart vocational training – these are skills that many students will acquire on the job - but rather to discipline their mind, enable them to learn how to solve problems and to teach them how to learn. In any case many of them will change jobs and professions many times in their lives. If statistics are to be believed, all those who graduated in 2007 will on an average change professions 2.7 times; and none of those graduating now will know today what different professions they will try in their lifetime.

The universities must resist pressures from both the market and the students to prepare the students for specific professions. In bowing to market demands the universities are in danger of losing their unique purpose. But at the same time while the universities have to remain academically rigor, they cannot altogether be insensitive to the market in the type of degrees they offer. The dilemma of the universities in designing degrees has been likened to the marketing of pet food. It must not only be nutritious but it must also be packaged in such a way as to appeal to the pet owner who pays for it; and it must taste well for the pet to want to eat it. In the same way, college courses must be sound enough to meet the test of academic rigor, attractive enough to the students and parents to be willing to pay for it, and useful enough for the employers to want to hire the graduates. It is a tough task but not impossible.

The Post-disciplinary Era: Faculty, Teaching,

Curriculum and Pedagogy

To be a world class institution our universities must attract the best faculty and students; and they must provide world class facilities, libraries and laboratories. Institutions are built by people; and in the case off universities, it is largely built by committed and qualified faculty of high caliber. This is the single biggest challenge and its importance cannot be exaggerated. In their report on higher education in developing societies, the commissioners underlined the importance of the issue:

‘A well-qualified and highly motivated faculty is critical to the quality of higher education institutions. Unfortunately, even at flagship Universities in developing countries, many faculty members have little, if any, graduate level training. This limits the level of knowledge imparted to students and restricts the students’ ability to access existing knowledge and generate new ideas.’ [6]

The situation in Bangladesh is somewhat different but the challenges of recruiting high caliber faculty are no less daunting. At one level, there does not appear to be a dearth of qualified individuals in Bangladesh. Even the most cursory glance into the faculty handbook of many universities in Britain, Europe, Australia, Canada, the Gulf countries and, especially the United States, reveals the prominent position of Bangladeshis in the faculty lists. Paradoxically, recruiting outstanding faculty at home has not been easy. In large part, the service conditions and compensation package is rather unattractive, and universities have to compete with businesses and other professions such as law, medicine, and accounting which offer pay and whose professional opportunities are much greater.

However, to say that it is difficult to attract faculty is not to that it is impossible. Indeed, the best and the most prestigious universities in Bangladesh, like the universities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) have been successful in tapping the best brains against considerable odds. But this should not obscure a deeper systemic problem. While some of the best brains have been attracted to these great institutions, the fact remains that many more brilliant young people have been lost to the universities. The ability of many degree colleges, especially in outlying districts and rural areas to attract good faculty has been unsuccessful. The challenge for Bangladesh universities is not the unavailability of qualified faculty (as is sadly the case in much of other developing countries) but rather of developing a recruiting strategy that is imaginative, flexible and responsive to the market realities.

It is true that much of the faculty is attracted to universities because of their love for scholarship, an idealistic commitment to serve the society and the enormous social prestige that is traditionally accorded to teachers and scholars. However, salaries do matter and university teachers outside the most prestigious institutions are poorly compensated. To attract top quality faculty the universities must offer salaries at a level that is competitive and offers a decent quality of life. But cash compensation is only a part of the problem. Faculty members are not just teaching machines. To most scholars what makes university positions so desirable is the opportunity for research and a life of reflection and contemplation. Not only must the universities provide adequate facilities and opportunities for research – good libraries and laboratories. The more imaginative universities have responded with innovative and flexible terms and conditions of employment. Universities must make room for faculty to take leaves of absence to write papers and attend seminars, to deliver lectures at other institutions, to avail short-term fellowships at other universities, and to have flexibility in arranging their teaching load.

Universities must also value and pursue good researchers. Researchers and teachers that produce outstanding results should be given due recognition, accelerated promotions and a higher annual increments and salary raise. The current practice of one size fits all and seniority based promotions is inimical to scholarship. Too much bureaucratic control not only saps creativity and is counterproductive: any one who knows universities knows that controlling the faculty is like herding a group of cats. The accountability of the faculty is best assured through their publication record and peer review.

The challenges of faculty retention are just as important as recruiting talented academics. Affordable housing is a serious problem in Bangladesh, especially in the urban areas. Evidence suggests that universities that offer faculty housing have been better able to attract and retain their faculty. One way of attracting faculty is to catch them young. But younger faculty often struggle between the demands of teaching, research and the caring of their children. This particularly affects the female faculty members and reflects adversely on their research. In order to retain faculty and to facilitate their professional development, the universities need to provide day care, crèches, kindergarten, and schools within the campus or in close proximity. Once these facilities are established, they can operate on self-financing basis and need not be a drain on university resources.

In a world where good faculty is scarce, universities have to take a more imaginative and flexible approach in faculty recruitment. Many universities have met the challenge by utilizing practitioner faculty to good purposes. Until recently the best and the brightest in the country entered government services. There is a huge pool of highly experienced, talented and motivated retired public officials, civil servants and diplomats that can be used to supplement the regular faculty. Likewise a huge pool of expertise exists in the commercial and nonprofit sector that can not only contribute to the teaching but will also help to bridge the gap between theory and practice that is so pervasive in many academic institutions. Many universities around the world have created new and flexible categories of faculty appointments to draw expertise from non-traditional sources.

Another potentially area but as yet not fully explored is the Bangladesh Diaspora faculty. Some of the private universities have started taking advantage of them but the public universities, because of their rigid hiring policies, are missing out on this opportunity. The visiting faculty brings vast expertise and new and innovative teaching techniques. While visiting faculty can supplement the resources of the University, they should not be viewed as a substitute for the regular full-time faculty of the University.

Teaching

We have so far talked about the challenges of recruiting faculty. However the recruitment of good faculty does not fully address the important question of teaching. We all agree that teaching is the most important task of universities and yet most institutions around the world do not take it seriously. The commitment to teaching is seldom reflected in the rewards and incentive package of the faculty. Interestingly enough, unlike business executives, lawyers, doctors or nurses, university teaching is probably the only profession in the world that does not require a qualifying professional degree. University and college teachers are often put in front of the class with minimal training, orientation or supervision. Teaching is seldom evaluated or taken into account during tenure or promotion review. In Bangladesh many of the degree college lecturers do not have a terminal degree, and college teaching is seen as something you do temporarily until a more suitable position becomes available. Moreover, the class rooms are crowded with hundreds of students; instructions are delivered in the form of lectures with no opportunity for discussion, seminars or tutorials; and rote learning is the order of the day. It therefore comes as no surprise that many of the students graduating from these colleges cannot write properly, have poor analytical skills, and are unwanted by potential employers.

Unlike in the Middle East and Southeast Asia where qualified foreign faculty have been hired at enormous costs until local capacity is developed, Bangladesh neither has the financial resources nor the need to import foreign faculty. Our best option is to ‘homegrow’ our faculty. In other words we must recruit bright graduates and train them through a Ph.D. program. We must launch a massive, multi-year Ph.D. program to train tens of thousands of young faculty. They can be trained in Bangladeshi institutions, perhaps in a sandwiched course where they spend one year in an international university gaining additional skills and exposure.

There is no substitute for faculty development to the success of the universities: it is not a quick fix, it will require a sustained effort; and will need the commitment of significant resources. Faculty training is not a one shot affair. Like all other professions the faculty need to upgrade their skill continually and at regular intervals. To meet the training needs of the faculty we must also consider setting up Academic Staff Colleges (ASC) in different parts of the country. These colleges will be dedicated to providing advanced training in teaching, communication, pedagogy and curriculum; and they will also retool and update themselves in their respective fields by exposure to the latest publications and developments. To make ASC a serious enterprise we must make completion of ASC courses and examinations a requirement at every level of promotion – from lecturer to full professor. A plan for faculty professional development should include completion of ASC programs three to four times during the career of a faculty member. The ASC should also be encouraged to engage in research on evidence-based teaching effectiveness so that their training programs are scientifically informed.

Last, but not least, we have to improve the classroom situation. The size of the class often exceeds hundreds. As more qualified faculty become available the size of the class should be reduced. Faculty should be encouraged to try different modes of student-centered teaching: case method teaching, problem solving simulation games, seminars, tutorials, role playing and classroom discussion to encourage student participation.

The Curriculum

Let me now turn to the question of curriculum. It is the academic contents of the courses taught that remains at the heart of a university’s mission. In a global knowledge-based economy, [7] the skills and versatility required for success in life and business are much more demanding. Faced with these daunting challenges we have to rethink how and what we teach, and revisit both the curriculum and the pedagogic approaches through which we impart instructions. [8] In other words we have to design a curriculum that is innovative and in which the pedagogic choices are student-centered. What we teach must be imaginative and reflect the changing needs of the twenty-first century.

The body of knowledge has increased exponentially since the liberal arts degree programs were first developed nearly a thousand years ago. In most universities today, the students are forced to reside in the silos of their own discipline, unaware and unconcerned with other disciplines and approaches. Even in the best traditions of broad-based liberal arts programs, the emphasis on majors and concentrations tends to narrow the exposure of the students and marginalize other relevant bodies of knowledge. [9] The challenge for us is how to create room in the curriculum for multi-disciplinary insights and comparative empirical evidence from other societies and cultures without at the same time overburdening the students.

Single disciplinary training fosters tunnel vision and is an inadequate preparation for students to face the complexity of today’s world. In the last fifty years, to be fair, the universities have experimented with inter-disciplinary, cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to training undergraduates but with limited success. In the challenging environment of the new millennium, we have to move beyond disciplines to a ‘post-disciplinary’ era by equipping students with a body of knowledge that will enable them to deal with the big issues and questions of our times from the perspectives of different disciplines and diverse methodologies. It will require versatility and knowledge drawn from diverse disciplines to study and understand the big challenges confronting our world.

The shift to a ‘post-disciplinary’ curriculum will not be without its own problems. In a world of high specialization, the focus of the academics on their ‘parent discipline’ is perfectly understandable – it is through specialization, often narrow specialization, that scientific advances have been made and the frontiers of knowledge advanced – and it is impracticable to expect the members of the faculty to be equally familiar with more than one discipline or sub-discipline. At the same time, it is obvious that ‘academic specializations’ of the faculty has not served well either the students or the employers who hire the students. No one has yet found a perfect solution to the challenges of specialization versus broad-based general education. Education without depth is probably no more useful than in-depth knowledge of one subject without familiarity with large number of other useful bodies of knowledge. Nor is there any easy answer as to how to fit in the short space of graduate and undergraduate degrees both the demands of an academic program and the competing demands of the employers to train the students in skills needed for the professions.

In order to equip our students with a truly portable skill that is relevant to the circumstances we have to go beyond what is currently offered by liberal arts curriculums. The university will need to ensure that the courses and concentrations are designed around problems and issues rather than disciplines. In other words the undergraduates, instead of specializing in a particular discipline, will be required to focus on a large problem facing the society, and to study and understand the problem simultaneously from diverse perspectives and academic disciplines. Questions like environmental degradation or global warming, making democracy work in plural societies, or poverty or social justice are some of the biggest issues of our times. But these problems are neither confined to any one country nor are they capable of being studied or solved through the prisms of a single discipline. Take, for example, the Copenhagen summit on global warming, an issue that looms large in our lives. It is a perfect example of one of the big challenges of our time that is not capable of being understood or addressed by environmental science alone. Environmental challenges calls for the understanding of not only the earth and environmental sciences but also of history, human rights, governance, resource management, sustainable economics and development studies just to name a few of the disciplines. Moreover, in a global society most problems have ramifications that go beyond the national boundaries. To comprehend these issues the students will not only need the insights of multiple disciplines but will also have to study them through a comparative framework.

What then should the structure of an undergraduate degree look like? No one knows the answers but we have to be open-minded and be prepared to experiment. Typically, an undergraduate will spend four years studying for a degree. The first two years are spent acquiring a broad-based liberal education with emphasis on languages (English and Bangla), basic sciences, and mathematics, statistical and quantitative analysis, the various analytical approaches to social sciences, research methodology, and the development of writing skill through research and the use of evidence by writing essays. The emphasis of the education in the first two years will be to give the students lifelong skills: the ability to express themselves – orally and in writing - clearly, coherently and persuasively, the capacity to learn and to research, to have an awareness of ethical dilemmas and choices, to have an appreciation of the art, culture and music, and to hold a lively interest in global and national affairs.

The last two years will be spent in one of the ‘thematic clusters or schools’ organized around some of the big issues of our time like environmental degradation, global warming, making democracy work in plural societies, or poverty or social justice. These are not confined to any one country nor are they problems only for developing societies. While students will learn about the ‘thematic issue’ in its totality from diverse disciplinary perspectives, the faculty will seek to address the ‘thematic issue’ from the perspective of their own discipline. The question of the environment, for example, is one of the big challenges of our time but it is certainly not capable of being understood or addressed by environmental science alone. Environmental challenges call for the understanding of not only the earth and environmental sciences but also of history, human rights, governance, resource management, sustainable economics and development studies to name just a few.

The post-disciplinary approach will enable the students to imbibe the various disciplinary approaches without the artificial ‘disciplinary boundaries’ erected by the existing ‘departmental’ structure. It will enable students to become familiar with different disciplinary approaches and scientific modes of inquiry without actually having to specialize in any one or two disciplines. Because the ‘big questions or issues’ transcend national boundaries and are very often global issues, the students will of necessity have to study them in a comparative framework and will be able to test whether some of the solutions found elsewhere have any resonance with their own experiences and problems at home. The students will have the option of majoring in either one or more ‘academic cluster’ by focusing on the big issues and large challenges of our time – poverty, environmental crisis, governance, etc. – and they will have the advantage of problem solving simultaneously from comparative perspectives and academic disciplines.

The teaching must extend beyond the formal curriculum. Classrooms are indeed the traditional arenas for imparting education but it is well known that students learn as much outside the classrooms as they do inside. We have to capture every ‘teachable moment’ by creating a total learning environment so that students imbibe as much from their surroundings - their friends, clubs, society and in the dining halls – as they do from their professors, classes, lectures, seminars, laboratories and tutorials. It is therefore vital that what is offered in the formal academic curriculum is supplemented by opportunities and experiences on campus.

Pedagogical Approach

The new curricular approach also demands a move away from old style pedagogy. Passive dissemination of knowledge through lectures is neither useful nor effective. Research into learning has shown that students learn least from passive learning. The same research shows that learning and retention curve improves significantly when students participate in the class discussions and even more when they are actually engaged in solving a problem. [10] The pedagogic choices in the new curriculum must invariably be student-centered in which various teaching instruments – lectures, tutorials, seminars, case studies, simulation, role playing, student-led discussions and problem solving, student projects, films and videos, peer group learning – will have to experimented with and adapted to make learning interesting, participatory, reflective and creative. Evidence-based teaching pedagogy shows that the case study method, with its emphasis on problem solving, engages the students most effectively and hones their analytical and problem solving skills.

A major aim of the universities is to ‘foster in the students sound civic sense and to train them to become useful citizens of democratic societies. The curriculum will be further augmented by compulsory participation in civic and voluntary activities and these will be a partial requirement for the successful completion of the degree. Civic participation will be carefully integrated into the academic program. Internships, volunteering in nonprofit and civic organizations, and working in the slums and farms, for example, will be required of the students. The universities must encourage the students to volunteer in the rural areas. Nearly three-quarters of the Bangladesh population lives in rural areas and yet most college students have never experienced or been exposed to the villages. Not surprisingly there is a huge disconnect between the educated elite and the vast majority of the people of the country. Through a ‘compulsory’ volunteering program in development agencies like Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), Grameen, etc., the students will be exposed to the villages, experience and understand real life problems and later on, as professionals and leaders, will be better able to understand and empathize with the rural problems.

Research & Knowledge Building

In addition to providing high quality education to the students, the universities are also engaged in research and knowledge building. Numerous individual scholars in Bangladesh are engaged in high quality research and continue to publish in peer reviewed international journals. However our academic institutions have neglected to create an environment conducive to research or even set serious expectations of research by the faculty. Our compensations and incentives do not reward research or creative work. This is true for both our best public universities and for the private institutions. To an extent the absence of research is due to the lack of resources – financial, libraries, laboratories and equipment – and our failure to invest in them has contributed to our diminishing research capabilities. Our universities are viewed mostly as teaching institutions with no expectations or incentives for research. The private universities present an even more dismal picture. A recent survey of Bangladesh publication in the Library of Congress in Washington DC revealed that overwhelming number of publication in the field of social sciences over the last two decades consisted of reports to donor agencies by the consultants. Not surprisingly none of our universities have found their way into the top 100 world-class universities of Asia or into the top 500 in the world.

While it is true that the environment, opportunities and resources linked to the sort of research carried out in the research universities of the world are clearly lacking in Bangladesh, this does not fully account for the weakness in our research. I think it is a false dichotomy to suggest that knowledge building is done only in prestigious research universities; or that those who are engaged in research should not be encumbered with teaching. I cannot believe that you can do one without the other. Faculty members who do not research cannot have a mastery of their subject and therefore they cannot be effective as teachers. On the other hand researchers who cannot communicate the knowledge born out of their research effectively to the students are too muddle-headed to grasp their own subject. Research is an integral part of the faculty’s work – teachers not engaged in research become stale and fail to communicate the excitement of the subject that comes from the mastery of their field; and likewise researchers who do not share their research findings through their teaching are short-changing their students.

Scholarship is not only about fundamental and basic research. There are at least four separate and overlapping ways in which every faculty may engage in building knowledge: the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching. All of them contribute to enhancing knowledge but are, for convenience, carried out in different types of institutions. The scholarship of discovery is normally associated research universities. The faculty in small colleges and departments prefer the scholarship of integration. It is a serious disciplined work that makes connections across disciplines, placing the specialties in larger contexts, seeking to interpret and draw together, and bring new insights to bear on original research. In the professional schools the faculty are engaged in the scholarship of application - the professional application of specialized knowledge to problems of real consequences. Finally, of course, there is the scholarship of teaching where the faculty are widely read and intellectually engaged.

All institutions of higher education - big or small, wealthy or those strapped for resources, urban or rural – have an obligation to contribute to knowledge building. Different institutional sectors will necessarily provide in accordance with their characteristic educational missions. Every institution must find its own niche; recognize diversity with dignity; and we have to resist the temptation to homogenize research in institutions of higher education or privilege one type of research over another. Incentives and rewards in each type of institution should be structured to take into account all forms of scholarship that serve their mission, instead of focusing obsessively on the scholarship of discovery.

Globalization has also profoundly impacted the way in which we conduct research and build knowledge. While it poses an additional challenge, it also offers an opportunity. Our knowledge building must not only involve drawing on the corpus and insights of multiple disciplines but it must also be empirically tested against both the local and global experience and perspectives. No college in the world, no matter how large, good or rich, has all the resources and expertise to address all the big problems confronting our world today. Most, if not all, of the world’s problems – population explosion, genocide and forced large scale migration, the scarcity of food, water and energy, deforestation, environmental degradation and global warming, cross-border and global terrorism, public health issues like epidemics like HIV/AIDS or bird flu, trafficking women and children etc. – are by their very nature transnational and not capable of being addressed in any single country. To remain on the cutting edge of research, the scholars will have to work in places outside their homes and will have to collaborate with scholars in distant places.

It has not been lost to the perceptive observers that the West no longer has a monopoly of knowledge production; nor are developing societies any longer content to be uncritical consumers of knowledge. Knowledge in the twenty-first century will have to be collaborative. It has to be built through a two-way exchange of information, experience and ideas; it must tap into knowledge systems of other societies and cultures and culture; and it must be based on a relationship of mutual respect and reciprocity. The earlier ‘extractive’ relationships whereby scholars collected material, data and samples and returned to their home institutions to publish and patent their ideas are no longer acceptable. [11] Scholars undertaking field studies in other countries and societies will have to abide by certain ethical standards and codes, they must be willing to share the benefits of the research with the host societies, and most importantly, since much of these works will be done collaboratively, they must acknowledge the intellectual ownership of the local partners. This offers a huge opportunity for universities to team with scholars around the world and address the big problems of concern to us. Bangladeshi scholars on the cutting edge of their research field and capable of defining important research questions can use their local comparative advantages and their convening power to assemble multinational group of scholars in collaborative projects.

Governance, Autonomy & Accountability

Institution building is complex and always time consuming. Building successful universities is even more complex and demanding, and is always a long-haul endeavor. There is no short-cut route. A combination of factors go into the making of great universities: a compelling vision, a committed leadership and abundance of resources; it must be able to attract outstanding faculty and students; it must excel in research and teaching; the curriculum has to be imaginative, innovative and intellectually exciting; the location, the architecture and the landscape must be inviting and conducive to learning, reflection and the exchange of ideas; the social, political and economic environment must be supportive and tolerant of intellectual and artistic flowering; the infrastructure – libraries, laboratories and information technology facilities, classroom, auditorium, cafeteria, dormitories, gymnasium and theaters – must be state of the art; and freedom of expression and ideas must guaranteed through a self-governing academic community. Not all great universities have succeeded in realizing the complete utopia of Thomas Jefferson’s ‘academical village’ but no university has succeeded in becoming great without academic autonomy and an enabling environment provided by the government. [12]

Governance & Autonomy

For universities to achieve their purpose of providing high quality education by internationally recognized academic standards, the institutions must garner unfettered operational autonomy and academic freedom. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of autonomy. They must be free to develop their own hiring policies with a view to attracting the most qualified faculty and staff, to determine flexible compensation and rewards packages, to set the standards and procedures for the recruitment of the students, to devise their own curriculum, to teach the courses they considers appropriate, and to pursue faculty research. The commissioners of the Central Asia University neatly summed up the importance of autonomy:

All these issues touch on the most fundamental concern of all, namely, that the new university should be constituted in such a way as to assure for its greatest and most solidly grounded autonomy possible. … There is no better measure of the progress of higher education as a whole and the success of individual institutions than the degree to which universities [are autonomous to manage their affairs.] Such questions must be addressed at a time when many relevant national laws throughout the region are in flux. Young governments are rushing to set up tax systems, laws on independent organizations and corporations, and rules governing employment and compensation. Will these new laws leave universities sufficiently free to hire the most qualified faculty and staff and to se their compensation, to recruit students and set standards for their selections, to devise curricula to teach and conduct research, to disseminate the fruits of research, to form links with individuals and institutions abroad, and to acquire the financial and physical assets and to dispose of them in accordance with the institution’s mission?’

Obviously, operational autonomy and academic freedom are not absolute, as local labor and welfare laws of the country will temper the university’s employment practices. Moreover, the norms governing salaries, benefits and pensions are to be viewed not as absolute conditions but rather as minimum standards that the university cannot ignore. In other words, while the university must abide by the minimum standards set the by the law of the land, they must be free to determine their own salaries and incentives to hire and retain the most talented faculty and staff. It should also be stressed that autonomy and freedom comes with obligations and responsibilities for the universities to the governments of the host countries. The universities, through their board of trustees and the vice chancellors will be responsible for the efficient functioning of the universities, maintaining the high academic standards, providing full and transparent account of their incomes and expenditures through the publication of their annual reports and ensuring the full compliance of national laws and regulations. The question of the autonomy of the universities pertains not only to the government but also to its relationships with other stakeholders as well. Although obvious ,it needs to be reiterated that for universities to achieve their objective of becoming a first-rate and world-class institutions, they must be nonpolitical, nonprofit and non-sectarian; they must be autonomous from outside interferences including founders and donors; and they must be financially self-sustaining.

Accountability

There is no question that autonomy and faculty self-governance are essential to the very existence of successful universities. However, the challenge for us is how to reconcile autonomy with accountability. Autonomy does not mean lack of accountability. Any institution that receives public funding has to be subject to governmental scrutiny and accountability. Governments have a responsibility to ensure that universities are preserving academic standards and are using public funds legitimately for the purposes for which they were allocated. However, these objectives are extremely important and can be better achieved without direct government intervention. The autonomy that universities seek is in matters of academic policies and internal operational issues; no one has advocated freedom from government policy directions. This is an important distinction and lies at the heart of the reforms that I am suggesting.

The charter defines the parameters and the purpose of the university, and the vice chancellors must operate within the limits set by the charter granted by the government. Within the terms of the charter the vice chancellors works under the direction of a self-renewing board of trustees, drawn from amongst distinguished academics and citizens. The board acts as the accountability holder; and it is through the board that public accountability of the university is achieved. And while the government may be represented on the board, its ability to intervene unilaterally is circumscribed by the collective decisions of the board and thereby ensuring that the autonomy of the university. The vice chancellor is appointed by the board, reports to the board and holds office at the pleasure of the board. However the role of the board is confined to guidance and broad strategic directions but does not engage in day-to-day administration of the university or interfere in faculty self-governance in academic matters. The board of trustees will stipulate what has to be accomplished to implement the vision, to uphold the high academic standards, and to remain true to the academic and civic values of the institution. The board will have the authority to set the broad policies of the university, but will not tell the vice chancellor and the faculty how to implement them or interfere with the operations of the university. The boards fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities by appointing an auditor who reports directly to the board and works with the finance and audit subcommittee of the board. The full board may invite the auditor to an executive session of the board meeting from which the vice chancellor and officers of the university rescues themselves so that the board can speak directly and privately with auditor. It is a simple but effective mechanism that ensures autonomy with accountability.

In all operational matters the vice chancellor must have full administrative and financial autonomy. The power to appoint the provost, deans, and principal officers of the university rests with the vice chancellor. However the powers of the vice chancellor are tempered by the faculty self-governance. In all academic matters the vice chancellor is first amongst equals and decisions are made by faculty senate or committees appointed by the senate. While only the vice chancellor can grant a tenured appointment to faculty members, the VC acts on the advice of the deans and faculty committee on appointments, promotions and tenure. Faculty tenure – or the guarantee against arbitrary dismissal – is an important part of university autonomy. It is designed to safeguard the faculty’s freedom of expression and the right to research and teach without undue censorship. But care has to be taken against abuse of the tenure system. It is not designed to protect jobs for the indolent. In many universities, tenured appointments are accompanied with a contract letter that stipulates the expectations of the universities in terms of teaching, research and publications, and participation in faculty self-governance institutions. Tenures can no longer protect dead wood.

The Role of Government

To argue for the autonomy of the university is not to suggest the government does not have a role in higher education. In fact the responsibility of the governments is critical to establishment of world class universities in Bangladesh. However times have changed and circumstances are different. The entire landscape of higher education is fast changing. The government no longer has a monopoly over the provision of education – even though it still remains the largest provider. Both non-profit (secular and faith-based) and for profit commercial organizations have become active in the provision in the arena of higher education. The power to validate a degree which until recently rested in the hands of the government is of little efficacy in a world where education is globally benchmarked. Internationally recognized and independent accreditation bodies are validating the degrees; academic standards are being monitored by self-regulating higher education quality assurance institutions; and graduation degrees are valued for their brand recognition (Harvard, Oxford or Dhaka); and student choice of universities are often determined by their market demands. This is not to suggest that government does not have a role in higher education. The public purpose of the government, i.e. solving public problems, remains the same as before. However the manner in which higher education will be delivered by the government is being transformed radically in the twenty first century.

The obvious recognition that ‘government’ and ‘governance’ is not the same thing helped to reinvent or reengineer the way government functions. The re-conceptualization of government has enabled us to conduct governance in ways very different from the past. There is also recognition that the problems confronting the society call for more concerted and integrated approach. Public problems are therefore best solved by bringing together the resources and expertise of the different segments of the society to address a common public issue. The governments have to build network of capacities, in which the combined resources and expertise of many agencies (governmental and non-governmental) and individuals are brought together to address a particular public problem. In recent years governments have moved away from being operational states to regulatory authorities. The appropriate role of the state is to regulate, facilitate and create an enabling environment that advances the public purpose. [13]

In the new governance paradigm, if the appropriate public purpose is to build a pool of highly skilled human resource, it must ensure that there is an adequate institutional capacity so that no qualified person is denied quality higher education. Viewed from the perspective of public policy it is not important or particularly relevant which institutions provide that education. While in the short- to medium-term it is inevitable that the governments will have to remain engaged in capacity building, in the long run it can be left to other service providers to step up to meet the demand. The demand may be satisfied by government institutions, or by the non-profit, commercial, faith-based or even foreign owned organizations. To express a preference for public or private institutions is to advocate an ideological choice – it does not a priori guarantee quality or cost effectiveness or a range of choice in higher education. Neither private nor public institutions in themselves guarantee quality or vice versa. It is, therefore, arguable that the government may be better able to realize its public purpose by using its enabling and regulatory powers by rather than providing the services itself.

Regulating Private Universities and Colleges

We have argued that it is not important whether quality higher education delivered by a publicly funded institution or by a nonprofit organization or even a commercial organization. What is important is that the institution delivers quality education, offers a curriculum that achieves the educational goals, has courses that are taught by qualified and competent teachers, has an infrastructure of facilities that are satisfactory for the purposes of achieving academic goals, offers students a choice of courses and subjects that is expected of a typical university or college, and discriminates against no academically qualified student on the grounds of finance, religion or gender. The public purpose of the government, namely the delivery of quality higher education, may be accomplished through use of its regulatory and enabling powers rather than direct intervention.

Quality Control

Bangladesh has not developed an independent accreditation body. The degrees and certifications offered by the colleges and the universities are validated by the government. The government is ill-equipped to do this especially as newer courses and programs are being offered by the colleges and the University Grants Commission neither has the expertise nor the resource to oversee nor review these programs. The blanket ‘one size fits all’ regulations of the UGC are observed pro forma. New courses and curriculum sent for review are approved without rigorous academic review. And once the course has been approved there is rarely any follow up to check how the courses are being taught. The UGC would do far better to encourage independent accreditation council with peer review of new courses and visits to the institutions to ensure that standards are being maintained.

Faculty Appointment

Unlike in the public institutions the UGC does not engage in the selection of the faculty of privately universities. While it is hugely welcome that the private universities enjoy the autonomy to appoint the faculty, it is important that UGC exercises certain policy-related controls. It should lay down the qualifications for the appointment of the faculty, the guidelines for the search committee and perhaps a requirement to have a faculty from another university in the appointment committee. While it is understandable that many of the private universities depend heavily on part-time faculty, the UGC should provide a guideline for a ratio between full-time and part-time faculty. The students need not only lectures and teaching but also mentorship and career counseling. Part-time faculty are unlikely to provide either.

Range of Courses Offered

Many, in fact most, of the private universities are commercially motivated and hence cherry-pick only those programs and courses for which there is a high market demand. This is quite unacceptable both on academic grounds and from the point of view of healthy development of the field. Students enrolling in a university should have the choice of a range of courses, subjects and options to broaden their intellectual horizon. And no less importantly, by cherry picking the most lucrative parts of the market these universities disadvantage other universities that do offer a broad range of subjects. (Private airline operators are allowed to bid for lucrative routes so long as they also undertake to service the less profitable market.) [14]

Access to Higher Education

Barring a few exceptions, most of the private universities operate an open student enrollment policy or have a very low academic entry bar. The rich in every society have been able to buy education for their wards; and the private universities are within their right to charge high fees. However it is unacceptable these institutions discriminate against the poor for their inability to pay the fee. The private universities should be required to reserve a certain percentage of places for academically qualified poor students and offer full bursary. The government may also allow a student who meets both the academic and means test to carry their government bursary to the private university.

In a knowledge economy, every woman and man is an important resource and we as a society cannot let our precious resources go to waste. Harnessing human capabilities is not just a case of equity and social justice – and both these are important – but a matter of survival and national security. The universities have an important role in developing human potential and will be a powerful engine for development in the twenty-first century. The purpose of financial aid and bursary schemes is to create an even playing field in which all students have equal opportunity to develop their fullest potentials and creativity without any discrimination. Scholarships,, financial aid and affirmative action to equalize opportunity and access to education are necessary but not sufficient. [15]

If we are serious about our commitment to making quality education accessible to all meritorious students irrespective of their financial circumstances, we shall need to think outside the box. We cannot, and must not, hide behind financial constraints. Once we accept that no student who has been accepted for admission on merit will be denied access for reasons of financial disabilities, the concern for social justice must inform all financial and academic planning of such institutions. Unless access to quality education – schools, colleges and universities – is guaranteed, our societal commitment to create an even playing field will never become a reality. Financial aid and bursaries for disadvantaged but academically brilliant and gifted students should be treated as a fundamental right. The financial aid and bursary should be both means and academic merit tested but the means test should not be mean.

Securing the Future of Higher Education

Historically the provision of education has been mainly the responsibility of the government; and the vast majority of the students have been educated in publicly funded institutions. The government not only pays for the physical plants and facilities but also provides annual grants to cover the costs so that the universities can provide education either free of cost or at a highly subsidized tuition fee. The government has played a central role in the establishment and managing of the universities and colleges in Bangladesh. Institutions of higher education could only be established by authority of the government and were largely (if not exclusively) funded by it. The government, working through the ministry of education and the University Grants Commission, appointed the vice-chancellors and the principals; it set the rules for appointment, promotion, transfer and dismissal of the faculty; and it determined the budget of the college and the compensation for the faculty and staff. The government provided and maintained the college buildings; it approved the curriculum that is taught; and it sought to ensure standards through centralized examinations and awarding of degrees.

There are two inter-related but separate dimensions to the question of funding the universities. In the first place the governments around the world are faced with dwindling tax resources and are being forced to do more with less. The government’s ability to fund the universities is constricted by competing demands from other development sectors. The government must, in addition to its regular budgetary allocation, find other innovative ways of funding universities. Without additional funding the universities will not be able to compete globally. The universities, on the other hand, also have a two-fold dilemma. In the first place, the universities depend on the government for their funding and any dimunition of funding will further impair their performance. Over the years the evel funding has not kept up with the huge increase in student enrollment. On the other hand the financial dependence of the universities on the government is so complete that they have lost their academic autonomy, which is seriously undermining the healthy growth of our universities. It is vital for the universities to diversify their funding and raise funds from nongovernmental sources. [16]

Government Funding Options

In an era where the ability of governments to raise taxes is limited and the tax base is dwindling around the world, the governments have often cut back on education to reduce budgetary deficits. This is a short-sighted policy under any circumstance. But today in knowledge-based economy such a policy is not just short-sighted but suicidal. The question of funding higher education therefore assumes a much greater urgency. The compulsions of a knowledge-based society demand that we revisit the entire premise of funding higher education. Tinkering on the edges will not suffice; and nor will a marginal increase in the budgetary allocation for higher education solve the problem. In order to become a global players in the field of knowledge we have find a way to fund education that takes a long term view and is not at the mercy of political vicissitude. We need to break away from the intellectual straight-jacket where education is listed in the same column as expenditures for defense or the cost of government administration. Higher education, like building infrastructure, should be viewed as an investment from which there is a visible, tangible and measurable return. Government must view investment in higher education as a business proposition that is not too dissimilar from any other high yielding social enterprise investment. Our large but young population is our best asset; and the benefits of investing in education and training to make our work force productive and innovative are obvious.

Once we begin to take the view that expenditure on education is an investment, and grasp the huge returns higher education produces, it should be possible to think of funding access to quality higher education through numerous innovative ways. To fund higher education in perpetuity the government may consider to tapping two obvious sources. The first is to impose a graduate tax. There is overwhelming statistical evidence to suggest that college graduates earn considerably more than those who do not have university education; most of the college graduates expect to live longer than at any time in history; and most of them expect to be productively engaged for a long period. And because they earn considerably more, in the overall scheme of things, they would give back more in taxes. We would not be far off the mark to claim that with a four year investment in a student we will assure ourselves handsome returns for a nearly fifty years. Even a modest income tax on the graduates would assure a very healthy sum to fund the entire higher education. Moreover, the scheme is without any serious political downside. The population at large would welcome such a tax; and I doubt very much if graduates will object to paying back to the society that has endowed them with education. Since the benefits of college education are so much larger, it is doubtful that any person will refuse the opportunity of college education for fear of paying the tax. Investment in education is the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. It is the only investment that has a guaranteed high return over a very prolonged period of time.

Education is considered a public good and it is only right that government invests in the education of the citizens. However it is also clear that not all graduates enter public service either through the state sector or the nonprofit sector. With the expansion of Bangladesh economy by far the largest numbers of graduates are now entering the private sector. The private sector receives skilled and work force but has not contributed to the training or education of its employees. It would not be altogether unfair to ask the private sector to contribute towards the cost of education. This might be done through some statutory contribution from the private sector for each graduate employed by them. The market charges for its products and services it supplies; and it is only fair that it should pay for graduate services that it uses. The armed forces in Bangladesh recruit young people and train them as engineers, doctors, teachers at the universities at their expense. The society can legitimately make the same demand on the companies. A mandatory payroll tax equivalent to 0.5 percent of the salary may be required of the company for all graduates employees. This is both fair and equitable.

With an income guaranteed from graduate and payroll taxes we can confidently begin to conceive of creating a world-class higher education system in the country. While the regular funding of the universities and colleges are provided by the annual budget of the government, the money derived from graduate and payroll taxes could be invested in academic excellence. A series of academic endowments could be created – National Endowment for Humanities, the Endowment for the Arts, National Fund for Medical and Health Sciences, Social Science Research Council, Fund for the Sciences, a fund to promote Bangladesh Council for Learned Societies (like the Asiatic Society) – where universities and individuals could apply research, creative and innovative work. The creation of funds to support selective institutions and researchers would be a great impetus to building a culture of research in Bangladesh and also for nourishing creative scholars.

Diversification of University Funding

In return, universities have to pay a heavy price in terms of government control and interference. Although the actual practice varies from country to country, in general, the government exercises a great deal of control including the appointments of the vice chancellor, the admission policies, and sometimes in matters of curriculum. And because the governments control the budget, they often call the tune on academic matters like faculty hiring and academic policies. The universities have little or no say in determining the compensation of the faculty, and even in the most critical issues of promotions and tenure they have to abide by uniform rules. Despite the financial crunch that most universities face, they are discouraged from raising funds or receiving contributions from alumni. Not surprisingly, with some important exceptions, universities are groaning under the deadweight of bureaucratic controls, are often politicized, are failing to attract good faculty and most important of all, the students are poorly served because of poor teaching and dilapidated physical facilities. The need for operational autonomy of the university has already been emphasized. However it is unrealistic to expect that a university will be able to enjoy autonomy as long as it remains financially dependent on the government or private donors.

It is an incontrovertible fact that the dependence of the universities on public exchequer has meant surrendering their autonomy notwithstanding the declared claims of both the government and the university leaders to autonomy. Until recently the universities have neither been required to raise, nor have they sought, external funding. Despite the loss of autonomy the relationship has been largely cozy. The universities are assured of their funding and the governments have retained their control. But the dependency relationship is neither sustainable nor desirable. We have already noted that the government, faced with rising budgetary deficit, and genuinely competing demands for primary and secondary education, health care, poverty alleviation etc., will be hard pressed to fund universities at a level that is needed to create world class institutions.

The establishment of a new university, and sustaining the existing institutions, is an expensive affair. Even the best and the most well established universities could not hope to cover all of their costs from tuitions fees alone. For the universities to be independent and viable, they will require adequate resources not only for staff and faculty salaries but also funds for construction of buildings, halls of residence, staff quarters, libraries, laboratories, sports complexes, information technology hardware and software, healthcare facilities, the purchase of equipment and building of infrastructure facilities like roads, water supply, sanitation, electricity and gas supplies. Without these facilities and infrastructure it is not possible to create world-class institutions. The universities are faced with an unenviable prospect. Continued dependence on the government is unacceptable as it has led to a sacrifice of academic autonomy; and it now appears the government is no longer able to sustain the funding of higher education.

Public-Private Partnership

The crisis presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Both the government and the universities must look to alternate and innovative ways of funding the higher education. We have already argued that in a knowledge-based global society the public purpose of the government is ensure quality education to produce highly educated work force. Who delivers the education – government, nonprofit or private provider – is not particularly relevant. One innovative way of achieving the desired result is to leverage private resources for public purposes through a public-private partnership. It is a win-win situation and offers significant advantages to both. In the first place, in return for a one-time substantial investment to make the university operational the government will be freed from continuing financial burdens, annual subsidies and grants. Second, and more importantly, the government will transfer the onus of financial viability to the university leadership and its private and corporate supporters. Fundraising and innovative methods of generating revenue will become an integral part of the university president’s responsibilities.

Universities in Bangladesh do not have a tradition of raising funds from the corporate sector and private donors. However, that needs to change and the universities will have to look to the private sector for contributions. In seeking private contributions, the university leaders will have to tread carefully and be mindful of the pitfalls. On one level, support from the private sector is both necessary and also beneficial. The government has many competing claims on its resources notwithstanding the enormous significance of higher education to the future of Bangladesh; the ability of the government to provide support on a continuing basis is unrealistic. More crucially, a healthy and cooperative relationship between the universities and the private sector can be mutually beneficial. Private funds will help the universities to remain more ‘relevant’ to societal needs; and the universities will be able aid the private sector by training potential recruits. The knowledge that the graduates of the universities are attractive to potential employers will make the institution much more attractive to students and their parents and make them more willing to pay a substantial fee. Carefully nurtured, the university-corporate sector collaboration can help enhance the goals of the university.

However, while the advantages of collaboration with the private sector are obvious, there is also a need for caution. Universities all over the world accept funds from private donors and corporations, but it is vital that private funding does not compromise the academic integrity and autonomy of the university. As in the case of government funding, the universities cannot allow the donors to influence the curriculum, the admissions standards, academic grades or the choice of research. There is a large body of empirical research that, while demonstrating the huge benefits of corporate and private funding, also points to the dangers of the commercialization of universities. [17] The universities will need to be mindful of many ethical and academic considerations in accepting private donations. That being said, it is essential that the universities foster a close relationship with the private sector and harness its resources to advance the universities’ goals.

The most important and continuing source of income for a successful university is its tuition fees and other income generating activities such as service charges from such activities like summer schools, executive programs, contract research and franchises of its trademarked products. Most of the government universities in Bangladesh charge a nominal tuition fee because the actual costs of the university are covered through annual grants from the government. However raising fee or charging ‘full cost fee’ is not an option until such time as we have provisions for means tested need-based financial aid for every student.

In a region where poverty is still widespread and where many academically gifted students are denied access to quality education for lack of financial opportunities, the universities will have to muster additional funding from private philanthropies and corporations to provide additional scholarships. Most importantly, universities will have to create their own endowment from which to fund scholarships and financial aid programs. The universities will have to seek capital and infrastructure support from the governments and will also raise funds from the corporate sector, private donors and foundations to augment their resources. In the long run, the viability and success of the universities will depend on their ability to cover its operational costs from tuition fees, service charges, research grants and income from their own endowment. The concept of an endowment is new to the universities of Bangladesh, yet its importance to the success of the universities cannot be exaggerated. Endowments not only provide an assured income to cover a part of the operational budget but also enable universities to be innovative, to experiment and to respond flexibly to new opportunities (for example hiring a talented faculty not provided in the regular budget) and to provide pump-priming support for new courses and research projects. Furthermore, endowments will enable universities to give substance to its needs-blind merit-based admissions policy. The more successful universities in the United States depend on their endowments to cover up to a quarter of their operational expenses.

Building an endowment is not always easy, especially for new institutions without significant track record or history or a large body of successful alumni. And even in the best of circumstances, building an endowment is a slow and time-consuming process. Despite these significant difficulties, the ultimate success and viability of the universities will depend on creating a sizeable endowment. While unrestricted gifts to a general purposes endowment may be difficult, there are other ways in which a university can achieve the same purpose. Endowment gifts can be secured for specific purposes identified by the universities as its priority area. For example it is possible to raise funds by endowing professorship in defined fields, scholarships for defined groups and purposes or fields, for named buildings or facilities, for visiting scholars and faculty or students, and for augmenting library resources to name just few of the many ways in which endowment funds can be raised. The endowing of these various activities has the advantage of freeing funds earmarked for them in the university budget; and prudent and imaginative university vice chancellors often use part of the fund thus saved by shifting it to an unrestricted endowment for flexible use in the future. The universities in Bangladesh will need to create a sizeable endowment over a period of time; and the governments may welcome such a one -time contribution to the university endowments in lieu of continuing annual grant. This something the governments should consider seriously.

The universities will also need to experiment with other income generating ideas. An idea that is gathering popularity is the concept of Science and Research Park. It enables the corporate sector to take advantage of the universities expertise for its research and development. At the same it enables the universities to strengthen its relationship with the industries and to take advantage of the link to promote research and to market its intellectual property and patent rights.

Conclusions

Globalization, as we have all learnt, is a mixed blessing. It has brought the best of times for some. It has brought the worst of times for others. It creates winners and losers, it brings hope and despair, and it creates opportunities for some and takes away the livelihood of others. We missed out on the industrial revolution and for centuries we have lagged behind. We cannot afford to miss out on the opportunities of globalization and information technology. In the knowledge-based economy of the twenty-first century our universities and colleges will be the engines that drive our development. In a world where the distinction between home and abroad, national and international, and local and global has largely ceased to exist, knowledge is globally benchmarked. No society can hide behind national boundaries. There will no room for mediocrity. We must become world-class global players or miss the tide again. Our challenge, therefore, is to build world-class universities and colleges so that we are able to train the minds of our youth through traditional liberal arts education and provide them with the tools of lifelong learning. We have to prepare and equip our students as globally competitive citizens, who will be at home both here and abroad, who can transcend from one society to another effortlessly, who are capable of communicating in multiple languages and who are able to work in institutions and organizations that are international, diverse, and multicultural.

For world-class institutions to be established in Bangladesh we have to unleash the creativity of our intellectuals, free them from the stifling bureaucratic controls and the deadweight of one size fits all. We have to trust our universities to manage themselves and guarantee their academic and operational autonomy. We have to endow them with resources and create an enabling environment so that they attract the best and the brightest. The role of the government is to ensure that our colleges and universities offer quality education but it should be of no concern whether that education is delivered by government or nonprofit or commercial institutions. The government must confine its focus on the outcome– creating a well educated citizen. Public accountability of academic institutions are critical to the success of the universities but they do not have to involve intrusive bureaucratic control. Universities can be held accountable through insistence on greater transparency, non-cumbersome regulation and peer review and evaluation.

The demand for higher education has expanded exponentially; and as our economy expands the need for highly trained graduates will increase sharply. The ability of the government to continue to fund the universities adequately is doubtful at best. The universities must look to public-private partnership and not shy away from harnessing corporate and private philanthropy to fund the colleges and university. To promote academic excellence and innovations we must consider setting up statutory foundations and funds to support research, promote art and build new institutions. By investing in our universities we shall invest in our future.

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* Lecture delivered by the author at the 58th Foundation Day of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

** Adviser to the Prime Minister on International Affairs, Government of Bangladesh

[1] I am deeply indebted to Peter Horn and Maya Barolo-Rizvi for their help in the research for this paper.

[2] Peter N. Stearns, Educating Global Citizens in Colleges and Universities: Challenges and Opportunities (New York: Routledge, 2009).

[3] Francis Oakley, Community of Learning: The American College and the Liberal Arts Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

[4] Nel Noddings ed., Educating Citizens for Global Awareness (New York: Teachers College Press, 2005).

[5] Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges: A Canded Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).

[6] Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise. p. 23.

[7] Ulrich Teichler, “The Changing Debate on Internationalization of Higher Education,” Higher Education 48, no. 1 (July 2004): 10-14.

[8] John C. Scott, “The Mission of the University: Medieval to Postmodern Transformations,” The Journal of Higher Education 77, no. 1 (January/February 2006).

[9] William R. Brody, “College Goes Global,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 2 (March/April 2007), 126-29.

[10] Derek Bok, Our Underachieving Colleges, A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and Why They Should Be Learning More (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1966), pp. 49-51

[11] Anthony Welch, “Going Global? Internationalizing Australian Universities in a Time of Global Crisis,” Comparative Education Review 46, no. 4 (November 2002), 433-471.

[12] Patrick M. Callan, “Aligning institutional vision with policymakers’ and the public’s interests” in Madelein B. d’Ambrosio and Ronald G. Ehrenberg, eds., Transformational Change in Higher Education: Positioning Colleges and Universities for Future Success (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2007).

[13] Gowher Rizvi, “Reinventing Government: Putting Democracy and Social Justice back into the Discourse,” in Dennis A. Rondinelli, ed., Public Administration and Democratic Governance: Governments Serving Citizens (New York: United Nations, 2007).

[14] Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003).

[15] William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzwell and Eugene M. Tobin, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2005).

[16] James C. Hearn, “Enhancing institutional revenues: constraints, possibilities and the question of values” in Robert Clark and Madeleine d’Ambrosio, eds., The New Balancing Act in the Business of Higher Education (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006).

[17] Bok, Universities in the Marketplace.