First university ranking prompts mixed reaction

A ranking of Bangladesh’s private universities, published by two prominent media outlets, prompted mixed reactions in Bangladesh.

While students and teachers of some private universities that did not perform well in the ranking raised questions about its authenticity, some other students and teachers appreciated the initiative, arguing that it would help improve higher education quality.

Academics hailed the initiative and said that there should be more such rankings and that the media outlets should continue the initiative.

The ranking

Bangladesh’s English language daily Dhaka Tribune and online portal Bangla Tribune published the ranking on 10 November. The research was conducted by Org-Quest Research Limited.

BRAC University secured top place in this first ranking of private universities. North South University stood second, while the Independent University, Bangladesh achieved third position.

The ranking’s publishers said universities were assessed based on two categories – ‘factual scores’ and ‘perceptual scores’.

They said an advisory committee of education experts from various fields conducted the rankings. The committee included: Dr Syed Manzoorul Islam, educationist and former University of Dhaka professor; Monzurul Haque, chair and managing director of Org-Quest; Sharifuzzaman Pintu, news editor of Bangladesh’s top-circulation daily Prothom Alo; and Syeed Ahmed, CEO of the Institute of Informatics and Development.

There are currently 83 private universities in Bangladesh, but not all of them were considered in the ranking.

The publishers said universities blacklisted by the government and universities that started academic activities after 2012 and had not yet held a convocation were excluded. Universities that offer degrees in only one subject and those that do not offer an honours degree were also excluded.

“We feel that rankings such as ours perform a real service, both to students – who now have useful information on which to base their application decisions, and who can make an informed choice about where they wish to attend university – as well as for the universities themselves, which benefit from seeing how they compare with their competition, and where they might need to focus their resources in future,” Dhaka Tribune Editor Zafar Sobhan told University World News.

However, some students and teachers said that the ranking was not neutral and their universities were not properly assessed.

Mehedi Hasan, a student at Daffodil International University, said he believed the institution was better than its number 10 position. Mahmud Hasan, a student of Stamford University Bangladesh, also believed his university was better than its number 15 spot.

Modelled on the world’s best

Dhaka Tribune’s Sobhan said a number of rankings that had been in place in various countries around the world had been reviewed.

“We attempted to model ours on the best that we could find. Due to the difficulty in obtaining reliable data, we had to also include a perception ranking, and the final ranking is a combination of both the factual ranking and the perceptual ranking.

“In time, we would like to reduce the importance of the perceptual ranking – this year we weighted it at 60% of the final ranking. But for now we felt that this was the best way to go,” he said.

University Grants Commission of Bangladesh Chair, Professor Abdul Mannan, told University World News he thought that there should be more rankings like this and that the ranking should be continued. “However, they must be objective and there should not be an element of bias.”

Sobhan said the intention was to continue the ranking. “We plan to do this every year from now on and hope that in time the data will become even more reliable and up-to-date, and that the ranking will be considered the last word in terms of authority.”