Editorial

The government's directive to students not to enrol in illegal private universities and colleges sounds rather queer and amusing. It shall not be responsible, the education ministry also says, for any adverse consequences of enrolling in those so-called institutions should anyone choose to disregard the advisory.

A large number of private universities have come up in Dhaka and in some major cities in Bangladesh over the last several years. More than thirty such institutions were given permission to open during the tenure of the erstwhile alliance government only. Some of them have served a very useful purpose by addressing the need for higher studies, given the limited number of seats in public universities. However, many of these had failed to meet the laid down criteria of the University Grants Commission. It is pity that some people have exploited the state of our higher education for pure monetary gains disregarding the need to maintain the required standard of education. The current situation indicates that UGC is being able to do very little to stop these people from plying their trade.

We have several queries to the government on the issue.

The UGC had published a list of universities that had failed to meet the terms and conditions set by it. How is it that these are still being able to function and continue to enroll unsuspecting students? How is it that they have been able to circumvent the law? We would like to further ask, how is it possible for the students to ascertain which of these institutions are on the government's 'black list'? Except for the onetime announcement, we are not aware of any government notification in this regard.

It is good to know that outer campuses of the unauthorised institutions have been closed down by the government, but why is that that these have been allowed to continue to function with a caveat that they cannot go for fresh intakes. Admittedly, it is the students that are already enrolled in these universities / colleges, whose interest the government has in mind. But the fact remains that substandard institution is a substandard institution which should have been closed down immediately after it was found that they had failed to meet the criteria after the stipulated time.

We fail to understand why the government is putting the onus on the students when it is the government that should have gone relentlessly hard after the defaulting institutions. Not only should they have been closed down totally, those that have violated the law, and continue to do so, should be proceeded against legally. We can no longer tolerate such a situation to continue.