Role of teachers
The New Age in its front-page article of November 8th, 2009 quoted a Dhaka University professor saying that he does not support public university academics working as consultants because it “warrants no creativity” and that “teachers should be engaged only in teaching”. I strongly disagree with both these statements.
Universities are one of the highest places of learning. At the undergraduate level most students not only gather basic academic knowledge but also learn the process of learning itself. At the graduate level, courses are designed to provoke questions about methodologies, styles and deeper understanding of their chosen subjects culminating in many cases in novel research work. Learning is a perpetual part of life and that is exactly why a university degree changes most people's outlook on life as they go through the process. As such, universities are vital institutions of modern societies. They must address the needs of the societies they are part of. Whereas they should be allowed to pursue academic goals autonomously, they must also bear their responsibilities of not only imparting knowledge back to the society at large but also address the latter's contemporary and future needs.
Consultancy by definition is a short-term paid employment to perform a specific task. Whereas one is expected to deliver just as s/he were a full-time employee, the employer hires a consultant simply because they cannot guarantee full time employment and benefits. Therefore, these short-term contracts have to be highly paid to compensate the expert for their time. It is ridiculous to say that consultancy warrants no creativity when for example such a short-term contractor has to find solutions to his client's problems based on all the facets of his/her personal knowledge and networking abilities.
University teachers should not be engaged in teaching only They should be engaged in exploring ways to propagate knowledge and seek new knowledge through continuous research with a keen eye on how to best benefit the society they consider themselves to be part of. Teaching is only a part of their task; keeping up to speed with new findings in their field and polish their personal academic expertise is equally important. Failure to keep up with the knowledge of rest of the world on part of the academic leads to failure of his/her immediate society. I hope by now your readers will start to see reasons why so much of Bangladesh is lagging behind the rest of the world. In the more advanced societies of the world, there is a close circle of collaboration between academia, industry and the administration. In Bangladesh, public universities have a reputation for being nothing more than an extension of petty partisan and often violent politics; they are a far cry from countries where academics are respected in their own right. Why any self-respecting academic worth their salt want to be part of such ill reputed institutions baffles me.
My impression of a secure government job being a magnet for all those who want all the authority without any responsibility is supported for example by the ailing and stagnant (and of course politicised to the brim!) civil service of the country. Many public university academics are no different: they want a guaranteed salary and benefit package from the tax payer and they want to do politics by going on talk shows and at the same time they want an even higher standard of living by moonlighting in private universities. How many of them sit down and think about how to improve their society using their vocational role firstly and fore mostly as an academic? I bet the numbers are shrinking since the academic culture of the country simply does not value these vital traits.
Let's keep politics at bay. Let's have a minimum sense of discipline and ethics in the highest academic institutions of the country be they private or public.
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