Our education system should be modeled after India and China: Abdul Hasib

Abdul Haseeb Siddique, CCO and BOT member of University of Scholars, spoke in an exclusive interview with Shampratik Deshkal about the several important views on the universal education system of the country. The interview was taken by Joint News Editor Zafar Khan.

(1) What is your opinion on the level of education in our country?

When we think about different levels, there are different tiers of education in our country like school, college and university. If we think about financially divided education system there are Bangla medium and English medium, and I think the difference between one system to another is the biggest problem we face. The fact that everyone tries to speak or conduct everything in English is not the issue. Rather we see that the way of the approach of education is totally different in both the system. In Bengali medium our curriculum is more focused on memorization whereas English medium focuses more on how you approach the problem, how you use your intellect. So, the differences are quite apparent. When we think about the levels in our schools, colleges or universities, we still have a lot of room for improvement. Especially since I am talking about Bangladesh, I will talk about Bangla medium institutions, that our education system is yet to create a skilled population. It is more visible when we see the people of our country going abroad and not getting jobs properly.

One thing that needs to be said is that the thing that we have completely missed is the Islamic education system. We cannot just ignore it. A significant number of populations of Bangladesh are going for Islamic education. What we see here, there is this same problem that we see in Bengali medium. Arabic institutions or Madrasahs are also not being able to produce skilled manpower. In order to improve our curriculum and create expert professionals, we should follow the way that China or India is advancing. I think we have to look towards that and drive our education system in that direction.

(2) It is said that after completing a bachelor's or master's degree from a public university in our country, going to developed countries for higher education is not evaluated in the same way. There again a separate course is considered for admission in the subject of choice. Is it our backward education curriculum or lack of coordination with the International Accreditation Council?

Since I am working within the education system, I do have an opinion on this matter. Basically, to the foreign universities or foreign countries, BUET or any other university in our country is the same. They don’t have a special preference. If you do know our country, yes there are few professors who have worked with different students from different university they might have some preference about certain institutions but when it is about academics, admission or prerequisite courses it's almost the same for everybody. So national university or private university I think there is no difference. When it comes to giving value outside the country, one thing that we can see as the main problem is our lack of accreditation. For example, the university where I studied is ABET accredited, so when a student of that university goes to study elsewhere, many courses are waived. Whereas no university in our country goes through any such accreditation, let alone public universities. Few Private universities have taken accreditation from Paco and other accreditation boards, such as AIUB or North South.

So as a matter of fact, accreditation does play a lot of roles because it facilitates a certain standard layout. So, the big problem in Bangladesh is that many students of Bangladesh study in English medium but they are still not considered enough educated in English despite having an English Medium of Instruction. Whereas if you come from any foreign university then you don't have to give IELTS to get into many universities that is because you have studied in English. Your level of English up to the mark.

(3) Why are we lagging behind in higher education research?

To be honest, many people are lagging behind in research in higher education. I think the biggest problem is that Industrial academia relationship has not reached the level where Industry will give fund to do some research at the university level. So, it can be seen that our education system is still stuck in the books, we have not learned to think beyond the book yet. In this case, of course, private universities have a lot to do. But it is much easier for public universities. For example, in the case of BUET, BUFT, we see Industrial academia collaboration in many places.

But we don't get to see effective collaboration in practice and we don't have a culture of research assistantship in our country. If you have seen, then you know that when we go to study abroad, we can afford to live comfortably along with our family with research assistantship fund. Whereas if you look at the case of Bangladesh, if someone gets assistantship in a university, the fund is too low even to cover commuting fee. The reason for this is we need to ask where the funds will come from. The funds will come from the industry and since we are missing this link, the students who will be dedicated in research, are difficult to find.

(4) You have studied in several educational institutions outside the country. Tell us about the quality there and the quality of education in our country.

I have been fortunate enough to study in some of the university abroad. Since I am heavily involved with our education system, one thing I try to do is to inherit the good things from there. One thing that I have inherited, when I go to study there, I see that the teachers record the classes. We could go back to lecture, have a look back at the lecture and we can find out what the teacher has said about that topic, things become very easy. If I don't understand at any point, I can review the recorded class and watch it 2/3 times to understand it. I have seen that it is totally different in Bangladesh, once I go out of the class for few moments, I wouldn’t know what was discussed so how would I know what to ask in the consulting hour? Maybe I was absent one day so that's why we record every class and put it on YouTube. It is open for all, open for everybody to see. The class lecture stays in the archive for years and years. So, it does give us a lot of boosts, making knowledge accessible for everyone.

(5) What should be the characteristics of a globally recognized advanced education curriculum?

We need 100% academic and industrial collaboration to create a world class curriculum. We need to understand the industry needs. We see in many universities that teach about software they still teach in the same system as they did 10 years back. For example, when I used to study, CSE department would teach C++ and we used to really back upon that. But if you see now, times have changed and they teach Python. We can see the new software has replaced the older version but there are still many universities who are dwelling in the past and haven’t upgraded the contents that are taught. Our teachers unfortunately can't get acquainted with the industry which is a big gap in the curriculum. One thing I always see in students is that their practical knowledge is very less. He is an electrical engineer you but he doesn't know how to install a fan. He doesn't know whether AC is 3 phase or single phase. If you ask a computer engineer to open RAM, ROM, he says it's a technician's job, I'm not a technician, I'm an engineer. But what you are is a machine doctor, you're an ‘electrical system’ doctor. If a doctor asks a nurse to operate does that make any sense? Doctor should know how to operate a system so does an engineer. What is important that we should know the system and we should know how to operate in that system.

(6) What steps should be taken to improve the quality of education in our public universities in line with international standards?

As I have mentioned earlier, I have seen abroad that a student has a lot of practical knowledge. They work practically. When we teach here, we teach making robots from the very initial stage. What is the reason for this? The reason is that we want the student to know how this thing work when he graduates. I try to instill small soft skills in a student. For example, if a business graduate knows Microsoft excel, then believe me they will not lack job opportunity. There will be a lot of jobs which will come to him but unfortunately our business graduates only know how to input data in excel, they are still far from being world class excel users. They are obviously going to work, learning these skills slowly afterwards but I think that if we can create this mindset and teach the students early on, then it will not be too late to create a world class education system.

(7) What are your future plans for education?

As I am working closely with the education system in Bangladesh, I want to take it to world class level. That's why we need a big collaboration with the industry to set the curriculum. I want to present University of Scholars as one of a kind among all universities in Bangladesh. I want to create such examples that students will tell you that if you want to really LEARN, then go to the University of Scholars. That is my future plan.