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JU: Convocation and commitment

29 January 2010, 18:00 PM
EDITORIAL
Abdul Bayes

Ready for the task. Photo: stanleywong.org

THE 4th convocation of Jahangirnagar University (JU) is to be held today, on Saturday, January 30, 2010. The university that I proudly headed once is about 40 years old. It implies that the campus so far embraced one convocation every 10 years. This is undoubtedly not good news as far as formal awarding of degrees to the students is concerned. In other countries, and even in private universities in our country, convocation is considered to be an integral part of the performance of the university. Convocation is a dream for students and that dream should not be dashed to the ground. However, the first convocation of JU was held with Professor Amirul Islam Chowdhury as the VC; the second one took place under my stewardship as VC, the third with Dr. K.Mustahidur Rahman and the fourth is going to be held under the leadership of Dr. Shariff Enamul Kabir -- the present VC. By and large, out of four, three convocations are under the Awami League rule. The campus already assumed a festive look all around with colorful festoons, clean roads and more importantly, the exuberance of the graduates in collected gowns they would wear on the day of the occasion. The campus is waiting to welcome the guests, including the Hon'ble Chancellor Mr. Zillur Rahman (President of Bangladesh), who will confer the degrees, and the chief justice of the Supreme Court to serve as the convocation speaker. It may be mentioned here that JU is the only residential university in the country, and possibly, in Asia. Quite obviously, the number of teachers and students here, on 720 acres of land, is relatively small about 6000 students and 420 or so teachers. It is one of the greenest campuses in the world with unique land topography. The lakes here harbour birds that come from distant lands. There are sloppy roads as there are sleepy breezes. Unfortunately, however, the university could not expand, as expected, in the face of the paucity of funds for development of the faculties. When I was VC in 2000, and served only for fifteen months (before I was thrown out by a clause that dates back by 200 years), I could harness Tk.400 million from the government for the development of the university. This amount was higher than the amount the university reaped home from 1970-2000. I am grateful to Sheikh Hasina's government, which was in power at that time, for taking special care of this university. Since 2001, all development work stalled, as funds did not flow as were required in subsequent periods. The university now comprises five faculties and two institutes. The Business Studies Faculty (with the departments of marketing and of banking and finance) and two institutes -- the Institute of Business Administration and Information technology -- were opened during the last year, under the present VC. In some of the VCs of public universities in our country, I always observe a sheer negligence of duties to the institution of which they obtain guardianship. Allegedly, they think that they should maximise their tenure of office by recruiting as many teachers (Voters!) as possible, by hook or crook. Recruitment of teachers for the sake of 'group politics' to me is a zero-sum game! If you lose power, the pawns jump out of your boat as quickly as possible to parade with the new VC. In fact, I reckon, the prime functions of a public university VC should be to mobilise development funds from different sources (especially from the government), impose an academic calendar on his colleagues and students, so that session jam is contained and create a condition of teaching and research in the campus. The VC should see that classes and examinations are held regularly; teachers perform their duties, and students abstain from the politics of money and muscle. Finally, a VC should always think that his competence should justify the chair he is sitting on, and not the other way round. This years' convocation of JU is worth its celebration on many counts. The most recent first year admission test was completed very quickly with results coming out within hours of the examination; new examination rules were formulated to cut the session jam and new halls and dormitories are in the pipeline. The development of a university is the expansion of a frontier of knowledge on multidimensional fronts. That requires new departments, halls and dormitories. Let us commit, on the day of convocation, to making JU a university of international repute where the sword of words is mightier than the words of the sword. Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics (former VC) at Jahangirnagar University.

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