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Teaching: Dhaka University style

5 February 2004, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Md Masrur Hossain, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
5 February 2004, 18:00 PM
We all know that education is the backbone of a nation.We have a long history of evaluating the learned. But regrettably, this is not true anymore. A nation's status of education can be understood easily when you look at the national universities and their science departments. As I have passed recently from Dhaka University, let me talk about my department for example. The number of dedicated teachers can be counted on one's fingers. Most of them are not at all interested in teaching; some are busy with party politics, and some are busy doing constancy and only drop into the university just before the class starts. For example, we were taught 'solid state physics' by a teacher who has this 'NGO' business and every time we asked a question in the class he shouted, "Why are you confusing everybody?"

During our third year practical laboratory we used to see every day that while doing the lab works, the teachers gossip. If you ask a question, the answer would be, "See the manual." After three years of this sort of practice we eventually graduated. I came to know that this scenario is still unaltered.

There is no teaching evaluation system in the institution. The teachers were very enthusiastic about increasing the tuition fees but are very reluctant to face any sort of evaluation. On top of this, one teacher promised explicitly (others maintain this attitude implicitly) not to give us more than 80 per cent marks. The result is even the first boy or the girl in the class is bound to get less than the mentioned unless you flatter the teachers very much.

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We need a change in this system if we are ever to compete in the modern world.