While the government is pursuing a policy to cut public expenditure on education and research in public universities, the insufficient allocations are also wasted in unplanned recruitment and promotion of teachers and staff, observed former student leaders. They voiced a serious concern as the university authorities are trying to raise various student fees and open high-cost evening programmes with alibis to cover up the lack of public finance, making the higher education a buyable product like anything in the market and thus pushing it out of the reach of the majority people. Nagarik Oikya convener and former vice president of Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu) Mahmudur Rahman Manna told UNB that the recent moves by the authorities to increase the cost of higher education as well as to shift the burden onto the shoulders of students enrolled in public universities reflect ‘irresponsibility’ of the government. “A huge rise in student fees as it has been undertaken by the authorities in various public universities in recent times is totally illogical and it’ll destroy the ethical aspect of education,” he said. “The recent tendency to increase the fee of higher education reflects that the government is shirking its responsibility to ensure the access to education to all,” Manna added. “It shows the ethical bankruptcy of subsequent governments as they’ve been failing to keep the cost of higher education within the general affordability,” Manna said adding, “Unnecessary expenditure of the universities has increased due to unplanned recruitment, among other reasons. And the promotion of teachers and staff is also responsible for the motif of increasing student fees.” Former vice president of Rajshahi University Central Students’ Union (Rucsu) Ragib Ahsan Munna echoed Mahmudur Rahman Manna’s concern, saying ‘although the allocations for the public universities are scanty, the university administrations are constantly creating the budget deficit every year by unplanned and unnecessary posting of teachers and employees’. “At the Rajshahi University, the budget deficit is happening mostly because of the unplanned and unnecessary recruitment, promotion and increase of allowances of the teachers and other staff,” Munna said. “At present, there is a pressure of about Tk 50 crore deficit on the required RU budget. It’s ultimately the result of partisan recruitment and promotion of about 2,200 teachers and staff over the last 13 years. Most of the recruitments have been made out of narrow political compulsion,” he said. “Besides, a quarter among the university teachers has found it profitable for themselves to run high-cost evening programmes at the universities,” noted Munna. “According to the information I have, 75 percent of the income from the evening programmes are taken away by the teachers. Only 25 percent goes to the university fund,” he said. “They (teachers supporting evening programmes) are actually providing high-cost private tuition in the name of evening programmes. The only difference is, private tutors can’t give a certificate to be used to the job market that the teachers at evening programmes can,” he added. Talking to UNB, University Grants Commission of Bangladesh (UGC) member Mohammad Mohabbat Khan said they are also concerned over the unplanned recruitment of teachers and staff in the public universities. According to the 39th Annual Report of UGC, which was published on November last year, 73 percent of the non-development allocations to public universities was spent on salaries and allowances of teachers and staff, whereas 11 percent was spent on education and related activities. The report said, “The reason for the gradual increase in the spending for salaries and allowances is the excessive recruitment of manpower by the universities, exceeding their respective allocations in the sector.” “Besides, the universities are following their own relaxed policies instead of the promotion/upgradatoin policy made by the commission (UGC) for creating posts, promotion/upgradation and giving selection grades,” the report added. The UGC report also expressed concern that huge difference in terms of the teacher-student ratio has been created among various public universities. In 32 among the 34 public universities, including the National University and Open University, the average ratio of teacher-student is 1:19 – ranging between 1:3 at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and 1:54 at Jagannath University. – UNB
