DHAKA: It was a suicidal decision to give permission to public university teachers of Bangladesh to teach at private universities.

As a result teachers have been losing their focus from research and this may cripple the nation.

Three professors from Australia and an energy specialist from Bangladesh made the observation in an exclusive interview with banglanews24.com at a city hotel on Wednesday evening.

They educators are Professor Julian Teicher, Professor Dr Quamrul Alam, Professor Bernadine Van Gramberg and energy specialist Saleque Sufi.

They have remarked on the whole scenario educational system in Bangladesh.

Monash University is one of the top universities of Australia and considered as eighth largest universities of the world. Around 60,000 students study here.

Three professors from Monash University recently visited Bangladesh on a special assignment. They have visited the country for more than once.

Professor Julian Teicher said one of the biggest problems with Bangladeshi educational system, along with other developing countries like China, India, Sri Lanka, is that teaching method is one way, teachers speak on the other side of the table and students listen to them without questioning.

Teaching needs to be interactive as static learning does not bring better results, he added.

Professor Julian Teicher further said another big crisis in the educational system of this country is that the government gave permission to public university teachers to teach at private universities. This is a suicidal decision.

The teachers need to assimilate the subject matter of teaching and this cannot be done without research. But where is the time to teachers of public universities including Dhaka University?

Professor Dr Quamrul Alam said I have seen various faculties locked on daytime and came to know that they teach for part-time at private universities.

They leave the public university campus after taking the class, he added.

The expatriate professor considers that earning money from private universities using the name and fame as public university teachers is a deception.

Professor Bernadine Van Gramberg told banglanews that the main task of university teachers is to spread the knowledge gathered through research among the students. But this is not being done in the country.

He further said the economic assistance that the government provides is also not sufficient and as a result teachers loose their interest in research.

Professor Quamrul said we take mid and senior level government officials in Australia for three weeks to helping them in capacity building.

We have had many capacity building programmes with Monash University and Bangladesh Government. Qualitative development of Bangladesh’s administration is its aim.

Bangladesh needs administrative and institutional assistances as the country has been aspiring to be a middle income country by 2021.

He also said that he was not saying that such assistances are not available in the country.

Still, Bangladesh needs to know what the developed countries have been doing.

Executives of developed countries explain about the steps they take in ensuring accountability, transparency and in controlling corruption.

So far, 75 officials of Bangladesh government have achieved the experience. Austrlian government bears the expenditure. We just have included research with the whole initiative.

Primarily, we have included the research on corruption like the types of corruption, steps that the government has taken to reduce corruption and how efficiently those steps were implemented.

We provide the results to the government. We exchange views, organise seminar and symposiums after six months of returning pf the officers from Australia.

Professor Quamrul further said Bangladesh understands very well how the developed countries move and they have an intention. But they need to cover a long way to be developed nation. A radical change in political, economic and social sphere is necessary. Bangladesh has been taking those steps for a long time but without any success so far.

He also said development of any country starts from above. Political and administrative leading is necessary but people also have a role to play. At one stage people need to give their opinion about what is good and what is bad.

People have a role to play to force government to ensure accountability.

Energy specialist Saleque Sufi said Bangladesh needs to improve more in the field of energy to be a middle income country.

For this, it can follow the developed nation, he added.

BDST: 0937 HRS, DEC 12, 2014