Private and public universities
We cannot deny the great role of private universities in giving access to higher education to many deserving students who cannot be accommodated in the public universities due to seat shortage. What seems to me more important is that when we address some anomalies existing in most of the private universities in the country we should not forget about the responsibility of some of the senior teachers of public universities who are serving in the private universities neglecting their duties entailed in their main job. Nowadays what has become most common in the public universities is the much delayed announcement of students' exam results (which is taking sometimes 6 to7 months to finalise ) whereas a private university hardly takes more than a month to do the same job done by the same teachers. Another grave objection is that public universities are rewarding too high grade points to their students presumably to allure students to get enrolled. Moreover, teachers in the public universities seem to enjoy unofficial holidays caused by campus violence rather than doing anything to stop these incidents sincerely. To add to our sufferings, some (political!) teachers engage in politics not to solve any problems directly related to the interest of the students but to please their political bosses shamelessly. Unfortunately, some student organisations seem not to care about general students' long standing problems which they can talk about only among themselves. Actually students' hearts are bleeding with rage against some so called intellectuals who says too much but do too little to regain the lost status of public universities( for example, the University of Dhaka, once known as the Oxford of the East).This is the general feeling of the students who have come to get higher degrees from renowned public universities but have been trying to survive the harsh reality and unhealthy educational environment in the campuses.
So, it has become now crucial to look into the long standing problems of public universities as well as the private universities to regain their accountability and sense of responsibility. It would be a great service to this nation as well.
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