ROLE OF PRIVATE UNIVERSITY IN BANGLADESH The greatest asset in ones life is the Faith - faith in what God Almighty

has ordained - worship God and God alone and none to be associated with Him and also faith in the Hereafter. These are the fundamentals of the religion enshrined in the original Bible i.e. Old Testament (Tourat) and Gospel Ingeel) and the Quran. Almighty God would probably pardon all sins of human beings, but not if he associates anything or anybody else with God. Almighty God ordained One religion, but it was made too many by the people themselves. God did not change the religion with the dispatch of different Prophets. It remained One and the same but each prophet strengthened the earlier Laws ordained by God Almighty. Oneness of religion is based on the great Patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim. pbuh) and he should be pivot in the pursuit of Inter-faith dialogue and ultimate relationship between religions. Human beings are the best of Gods creation and they have been placed in status above the Angels. Simply reflect back and see why Almighty God created the first human being Adam (PBUH) and made him the best of His creation by blowing His own Spirit into Adam. Almighty God apparently sent His Vicegerents on earth and wanted them to be good to the fellow human beings so that His Creation could be peaceful and such a human being could be capable of serving the humanity as a whole. Allah (SWT) never wanted His Vicegerents to create mischief on earth. What the world is facing today is totally against the Will of Almighty God. The world is full of injustices - occupation, oppression, subjugation, deception, deprivation, unilateralism, human rights violations, religious extremism etc. This is why there is discontent all over the world leading to so called terrorism and hugely controversial war on terror. Almighty God never created any barriers between people. He created one world, one people, and one religion. The divisions are all man -made. Powerful people came and displaced the less powerful by force and deprived them of their rightful possessions and hence all wars and associated problems. Some have too much, very often acquired through corrupt practices and also unlawful and deceitful way. And they merrily enjoy life as if there will be no accountability and nobody else is ever to be cared for. Any legitimate protest against any prevalent injustices is considered unlawful and termed as terrorism requiring harsh actions by way of using man made laws that suits only interested groups. Such an unjustly divided world cannot have any peace. Its time for all conscious people on earth to wake up and respond to the call of the Creator to live in peace and harmony. Dear Graduates, here lies your work and the initiative to right the wrongs wherever possible. Its a daunting task, but you have to face them with strong determination and move forward. You have to fight another endemic disease corruption huge corruption all over the world. Start from your own country. We excelled in it long back. Indeed, corruption creates greater inequality than the traditional capitalistic system does. In my view this is an urban disease now spreading to rural areas very fast. Under the present capitalistic system, some top executives of some banks walk back home with handsome bonuses, but the next morning the banks are declared bankrupt! Such situations brought economic meltdown practically all over. Why the world is so corrupt today? Why so much greed? Why should people forget that they are Gods best creation? Does this not embarrass the Creator? Millions already in hand but needs more millions to make it a billion, but it does not stop even there, it goes on it is complete madness. It is high time to stop it and you young graduates must show the way. The world has been made extremely unsafe by the devilish work of some powerful people. All of them wage wars to right the wrongs according to their perceptions, but their perceptions are generally based

on political whims or self- interest. So their wars actually do the opposite. In any case, wars can never solve problems. They only multiply the wrongs and make the world more unsafe and unlivable. There should be no barriers at all for peoples movements for earning their livelihood in search of food and shelter which are the basic and fundamental rights of the human beings. Why should there be any barrier at all? Almighty God created land which belongs to Him (the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants says God Old Testament Leviticus 25:23). Quran also points to similar things everything is Allahs creation human beings can only enjoy whatever is just for him and not to grab things which belong to others. Barrier free and borderless world will not only create new history, this will change the face of the earth - no more war, no more terrorism, no more hatred between people. Such a world will be the perfect place to live in peace and harmony. Live and let live. Why should a country or countries go beyond their own borders and exert their political and economic influence on others? The result is obvious; more wars and unjust interventions causing colossal deaths, destructions and immense sufferings to the people. Some of the powerful interventionists or better say invaders continue to insist that they did the right thing and will continue to do so if another chance is given. But the people already rejected them. Human beings thus stray far from what Almighty God desired. Here lies the devotion and work that you all are required to do. You are people with appropriate knowledge and your good work can make the difference in correcting the devilish or diabolic system. Hard work indeed, but it must be done and you, young Graduates with appropriate knowledge can do it. Only need is the determination and goodness of heart from all of you together. Dear Graduates, before going to bed, just think of what you did during the day for yourself and the society. If you have done too much for yourself only and hardly anything for others, just reverse it from next day. I tell you for sure that you will certainly feel better from that day onward. There is nothing like helping others. Give a piece of bread to a hungry kid his/her smile on it is worth millions - it should give you the greatest pleasure in life. Come and the rescue the people caught under man- made cycle of poverty, give education to the uneducated, transmit knowledge to those who lack it and help those who need it. Just continue the process; you will see that the world around you has started to change as many others are likely to follow you. Just take the initiative for any good work. Good work for good of the people can never fail. It has happened to many people around the world. The initiative that we took to start the first private university may be relevant here and needs to be highlighted. Though there were initial hesitations and even some opposition to our initiative, many friends and business leaders responded to my call and joined and made the private university initiative a success. Now the result is obvious. Many followed this good example. There are already more than 50 Government approved private universities in Bangladesh. Some already have earned good reputation and you are yourselves the product of one such an institution United International University. Who knows! You are all bright Graduates and have the knowledge; you may even go for much bigger initiatives, bigger projects that may benefit the entire human race. Gather knowledge. But it should be good knowledge that can benefit the people in general. Knowledge for producing things that kill people is not a good knowledge. Maybe others are misusing the product of a good knowledge to their own benefits. They will have to account for their evil deeds. You are the graduates and have the basic education, but to be really educated you need to continue to study

whatever may be the subject. Do research to expand knowledge and to find the true meaning of life. I tell you, its fascinating to pursue this sort of research. Find out why Almighty God went for creation of this endless universe and what was His purpose. Dont run away from the country for good life elsewhere. It never pays, you will be uprooting yourself from your own Root; indeed you should be proud of it. Good life elsewhere! Yes, but you are treated there as an alien or at best a second class citizen. Things are getting more difficult every day because of your religion and color of skin. Going abroad for education, higher degrees yes, but return in good time. The country has given you a lot. Now it is your turn to give something to the country, your people. Your people, however poor and illiterate they are - they are your people. They are good people and they consider you all as the enlightened children of the society. You must help them get out of their present unjust situations for which they are hardly responsible. Now a word about the educational system particularly private education that enabled you to earn degrees and become graduates within the stipulated period. No loss of time at all. Its a great achievement indeed! On earlier days, things were different: Years were lost amid years of student politics and resultant campus violence to earn a degree. This led us to go for private universities with the expectation that there would be no students politics in the campuses of the private universities. The reasons for our expectations were that the students will pay higher fees, strong administrative control, completion of courses on time and holding of exams leading to awarding degrees on schedule. Our expectations were well founded. We succeeded in holding on to our goals. The result is obvious; you all got your hard earned degrees on time. But I must admit there are some failures too. Its time for all of us to look into the good effects or otherwise of private university system and try to correct the faults wherever they exist as soon as possible. Some researchers within the country and abroad have already started working on the effects of the private university system in Bangladesh. Some already interviewed me on the issue of privatization of university education. Research on the issue should continue. It is true that too many private universities have been established without adequate infrastructural facilities. If we go by the demand we need all these and indeed more universities. However, at present there are acute shortages of teachers, class room and other extra-curricular facilities. Hence educational quality has gone down. The private universities often draw teachers from the state universities and this has adversely affected the quality of education in the state universities too. Honble President and Chancellor of Universities and the Minister of Education, and also the UGC have been insisting very rightly on improving the quality of education in various universities whether state or private. This led us to establish quality monitoring organization Educational Quality Assurance Foundation (EQAF). We have been able to find support of many academics from within and outside the country and have already established collaboration with the Higher Education Commission of New England Association of Schools & Colleges (NEASC), one of the Accreditation Commissions of the USA. We will evaluate the universities both private and state on the basis of Self Reporting System of the universities themselves. In other words, EQAF will evaluate the universities in a very transparent way on the basis of the reports of the Vice Chancellors, but EQAFs evaluation reports will be transmitted to the universities and full opportunities will be given to the universities to defend their positions. Enough time will be given to the universities to correct the shortfalls before EQAF finally publishes their reports.

EQAFs main objective is to establish quality education at all levels in the country with the full cooperation of the educational institutions and no attempt will be made to undermine the honest efforts of any university whether private or state. EQAFs reports will be randomly scrutinized by the experts of the Higher Education Commission of NEASC, USA before these are made public. EQAFs work and evaluation will automatically lead to Rating of the Universities on international standard. This will help foreign universities to assess the quality of education in the Universities of Bangladesh while considering admission of students into Masters and Ph. D programs in those universities. EQAF is fully geared to giving full support to the government in assessing in a very impartial and transparent way the quality of education of all universities Private and State and also the capabilities of new applicants to start private universities and reporting the same to the Government for decision. Private universities should be given Government land in selected areas as done in the cases of land grant universities in the US. This will remove one of the main obstacles in the way of having suitable campus environment. Party Politics in the universities must go. The students who are interested to do active politics before graduation (best course is to be graduate and then do politics) should join the main political parties and go there whenever they are required to do so and work there as apprentices under the senior politicians of the parties they would chose. But when they return to the campuses after doing the party work, they should be only students with their books in hand and not guns and pistols. No party political meetings can be held within the Campuses. Students should, however, have Student Association to place their educational problems to the University authorities. Such a non-party Association of students can also jointly participate in national issues as they did during Language Movement, Liberation War etc. should such a situation ever arise! Leaders of the political parties have to lend support to such a system where some students who want to engage in politics before earning degrees can do so as well as continue their studies. But the politicians should bear in mind that students should not be used for political agitations. Same prescription is for the teachers of the universities. They can do politics outside campuses but when within campus they must be teachers and not representatives of any political party. The system of awarding promotions or undue appointment to high university administrative posts to teachers doing politics in favour of any political party must be done away with if good and calm environment is to be ensured in the campuses. Good colleges of the country delivering standard education should be authorized to award degrees. Why should the Institutions like Dhaka College, Notre Dame College, Victoria College, Edward College and other standard colleges of the country be barred from award degrees when small private universities even without adequate educational facilities can award degrees? It hardly makes any sense to ask the students of these good Colleges to appear under National University which has been suffering from endemic corruption, educational and administrative problems since its inception. My sense is that the very idea of a National University as the Apex body for holding exams was faulty. It could have been for research and teachers training purposes. The result is that the students of these colleges lose the reputation they enjoyed by studying in those high level colleges which have about 50-100 years of good educational records and particularly teaching experiences. It seems that the present government has started taking action in this regards by upgrading some colleges to the level of a university. The process should continue.

May I also place before you what benefits Private universities have brought in countrys educational system: 3 - year - degrees have been converted into 4 - year degrees practiced by the private universities paving the way for the graduates to join US universities without losing any academic year. Semester system with changes in the exam structures has been introduced replacing the age old exam at the end of 3 years which required memorization of courses perceived important. The students should be encouraged to read the entire course set in the book and be ready to answer question from any part of the book. The entire system of setting only important questions must be done away with. This will automatically do away with the note books with important parts of the courses. Credit system has brought revolutionary changes in the educational system of the country and this has travelled down to even school system. But some resetting of the credit structures should be brought in to avoid too many stars and golden stars. Only the deserving students should get them. State University seats were set free and made available for more financially disadvantaged students as many wealthy students got into the private universities. Now private universities accommodate and teach more students than the State universities. Number of students going abroad for studies has also gone down. This is particularly applicable for the girl students that has good family and over all social effect. Private university first started BBA (IBA had only MBA program) and Computer Science Undergrad programs. Private Universities opened up huge employment opportunities. The remunerations of university teachers also went up substantially. This enabled many academics to return home and teach. Private tuition and coaching system must go. This has corrupted the entire educational system. The deficiencies of students in some areas of the courses or subjects should be taken care of within the school and college systems. The teachers doing the extra courses scheduled by the Institutions should be remunerated within the system. Any teacher found to indulge in private coaching and giving out question papers must lose his job. **The book Promised Land? as mentioned above was published on August 20, 2010 in the USA and can be seen in Google and is available at important book stores around the world like Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Book- A million etc. (This speech was delivered by Mr. Muslehuddin Ahmad as the convocation speaker at the first convocation of United International University, Dhaka held on 28 October 2010) Muslehuddin Ahmad is a Former Secretary and Ambassador, Founder Vice Chancellor of North South University (Rtd), and President of Educational Quality Assurance Foundation (EQAF)