Higher education?
Photo: Azizur Rahim peu/Driknews
I think time has come to say good-bye to our 'go abroad and earn your higher degree' kind of attitude. An attitude that has been so much glorified, from time immemorial, within our academic premise, and also has become part of our non-academic schemata. First, I would like to clarify that I am not discouraging the brilliant and persevere students who are working hard and are becoming successful to earn prestigious degrees from the different educational institutions of the west. But, what I am stressing at: is our patronising attitude that, if we want to earn a PhD or if we want to do an in-depth-research on any particular topic, then we must go abroad. There was a time when a few students from Bangladesh came abroad on different full-bright scholarships to do their degrees and they did that successfully. But, the reality of the present context is pretty harsh. There is hardly any scholarship available now for the international students; given that in the UK, there are three categories of students; Home, EU and International. While the first two categories are characterised similarly, the international students need to pay three times as much tuition fees as the others, and also the international students are not entitled to compete for the same scholarship schemes. And there is no exclusive scholarship available for being Bangladeshi students (there are some for particular countries). At the same time, living expenses are rising every day, and getting 'odd' kind of job is becoming difficult every day due to the recent economic downturn. At the same time, juggling between intellectual commitment and working as a manual labourer often poses a challenge which, not surprisingly, can distract a student's real intention. Therefore, instead of alluring students to go abroad, we should inspire them to pursue their research interests from their own home institutions. This is also crucial to create and enhance our own 'body' of knowledge. It is prime time that the public universities should really focus on creating opportunities for doing research-based higher degrees like M. Res and PhD as well as creating opportunities to do primary research in the undergraduate levels. Each year separate funding should be allocated to patronise meritorious students to compete for doing doctoral degrees. A well-furnished and continuously upgrading library and a good access to the virtual world-knowledge data-base are pre-requisite to developing our own structure of higher studies. And I believe I am not making an impossible demand to a thirty-eight-year old nation.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments