Leadership search committee set up amid university unrest

A search committee tasked with putting forward the names of candidates for the posts of vice-chancellor, pro-vice chancellor, and treasurer in public universities in Bangladesh has been set up amid protests in at least five public higher education institutions over various issues, including demands for the removal of newly installed vice-chancellors.

Educationists question the timing – and motivations – behind the committee’s establishment, pointing out that most of the leadership positions in at least 47 universities were filled just a few months ago when vice-chancellors and other officials – many of them political appointments – were replaced in the wake of the July student-led uprisings which saw the removal of Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina as the country’s prime minister.

New vice-chancellors have been appointed for a four-year tenure.

The Ministry of Education’s Secondary and Higher Education Division set up the search committee on Sunday 18 May. It will be led by the interim government’s education adviser, Professor Chowdhury Rafiqul Abrar, who also heads the ministry.

The committee will review applications and propose three names for each post. Bangladesh’s president, who also serves as the chancellor of public universities, will make the final appointments, officials said.

Former Jahangirnagar University professor Anu Muhammad told University World News the formation of the search committee did not necessarily ensure fair appointments or improved university governance.

He added it was essential to establish a uniform policy and permanent governance framework for vice-chancellor appointments at all universities.

A top official of the University Grants Commission (UGC), which regulates the higher education sector jointly with the ministry, also expressed scepticism.

He told University World News that in 2007, the then-caretaker government formed a similar search committee to appoint vice-chancellors to universities other than Dhaka, Rajshahi, Jahangirnagar, and Chittagong.

That initiative became ineffective after the Awami League came to power in 2009.

A former UGC member said successive governments appointed public university vice-chancellors based on political considerations.

“Having a search committee to break that system is better late than never,” he told University World News, but then questioned the committee’s mandate, as appointments have already been made at almost all public universities after the mass resignations of university leaders last year.

Provisions to appoint vice-chancellors

Until now, the respective laws of four large public universities – Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Jahangirnagar – include provisions for vice-chancellors to be appointed by the country’s president after they are elected by the senate of the respective universities.

But, in most cases, unelected vice-chancellors run the universities. Currently, the vice-chancellors of Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Jahangirnagar universities are not elected.

As per the rules of other universities, the president has the mandate to appoint a university head, but this follows the consent of the prime minister (or chief adviser in the current interim government) after the education ministry sends a list of potential candidates.

Nurun Akhtar, additional secretary (university) of the ministry’s Secondary and Higher Education Division, told reporters the search committee will work for future appointments, if necessary, but she declined to comment on whether it would have been more appropriate to form the committee before the latest round of appointments.

First task

Several officials in the division said the first task of the search committee will be to list prospective names for vice-chancellor and pro vice-chancellor posts at Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) and the University of Barishal (BU). Unrest at both these universities has included opposition to the vice-chancellors recently appointed by the government.

Currently, no classes are taking place at KUET due to ongoing student protests against the banning of student politics on campus. The disruption began on 18 February when students were injured in an assault allegedly carried out by outsiders.

In April, the interim government relieved the then vice-chancellor and pro vice-chancellor of their duties after a hunger strike by student protesters, and on 1 May appointed Professor Hazrat Ali as the university’s acting vice-chancellor.

Academic activities were scheduled to resume some days later, but teachers then declared a boycott of academic duties, insisting that those responsible for assaulting teachers during the student protests must first be brought to justice.

Ali submitted his resignation to the ministry on 22 May, after serving as acting vice-chancellor for less than a month, KUET registrar Anisur Rahman confirmed to media.

Removal of female vice-chancellor

At BU, student protests began on 15 April when the university authorities removed a serving member from the university syndicate.

BU’s then vice-chancellor Professor Shuchita Sharmin, who faced a backlash from a faction of students and teachers over the appointment of the registrar — said to be an associate of the Awami League – was removed as vice-chancellor on 13 May, just eight months after she was appointed as Bangladesh’s only woman vice-chancellor.

Her removal came amid protests against alleged irregularities and “administrative mismanagement”. Professor Mohammad Toufiq Alam of Rajshahi University was appointed interim vice-chancellor of BU the next day.

Dhaka University has witnessed protests since 14 May, which included demands for the removal of the vice-chancellor and the arrest of the killers of university student Shahriar Alam Shammo, who died on the campus the previous night.

Protests over accommodation, naming

Classes at Jagannath University were disrupted from 15 to 17 May as students and teachers held a sit-in, demanding proper residential facilities. They called off their protest after UGC chairman Professor Syed Muhammed Abul Faiz announced the interim government had accepted their demands.

Students of Gazipur Digital University held demonstrations in February demanding a change in the institution’s name to one that included the word “Bangladesh” and terming it an issue of “national identity” and academic recognition.

UGC’s Faiz told University World News: “We are taking all-out efforts to resolve problems. Each university has its own unique issues.”

The unrest at five public universities has severely disrupted academic activities, affecting nearly 70,000 students, UGC officials estimated.