Our universities
Once we were proud of our oldest university. Although I do not know who first called Dhaka University the Oxford of the East, there was much to be proud of. We had world famous physicist Professor S. Bose, celebrated Professor A.K Dasgupta, leading philosopher Professor GC Dev, distinguished historian Professor R.C. Majumder, and many more very high calibre academics. Dhaka University also produced the Nobel Laureate Professor Yunus, and many of its graduates gained fame in their respective professions both in the country and abroad. Alas, our oldest university does not have any ranking in the world, or in the Asia-Pacific region! A number of independent organisations have been publishing university rankings for some time now. The most cited among them are the rankings by Times Higher Education, followed by the Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. None of the universities in Bangladesh are among the top 500 universities in the world. The Shanghai Institute also publishes rankings for Asia-Pacific universities. Unfortunately, our universities have failed to achieve any ranking there. What about the rankings of our universities in the subcontinent? The Cybermetrics Lab (Spain) has recently published its 2008 “Webometrics Ranking” of subcontinental universities. Only 4 universities in Bangladesh could find some place among the top 100. They are BUET (ranked 25), Dhaka University (ranked 61), Ahsanullah University of Science & Technology (ranked 77) and East West University (ranked 80). Pakistan's Lahore University of Management was ranked 11. Seven other universities in Pakistan ranked above Dhaka University. One can dismiss these rankings on methodological grounds. For example, Webometrics gives more weight to the web presence of universities. However, Webometrics ranks correlate well with rankings by Times Higher Education and the Shanghai Institute based on quality of education provided, academic prestige and students' satisfaction. Is it not time we woke up and scrutinise seriously the performance of our universities?
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