এই ব্লগের কোন লেখা আমার অনুমতি ব্যতীত কোথাও ব্যবহার না করার অনুরোধ করছি

Autonomy is the standard of appraising the ameliorations and inventiveness of a nation. The dimension of the amelioration and inventiveness of a nation can be assessed by determining how much liberty and autonomy a nation indulges. Glancing at the different countries and nations of the world clarifies that the exalted nations forever enjoy immense liberty whereas the depressed class are deprived of acute freedom. A nation or a country consists of copious organizations, starting from a grocery to a university; the stipulation of life is the core of all such establishments. A university is the preeminent, most celestial and the broadest institution among all human enterprises. The responsibility of a university is to ensure an environment of independent practice of knowledge so that the encroachment of human in the way of conquering the obscurity of the unknowns is never agitated. The first condition of this independent practice of knowledge is liberty and autonomy, the country and society must acknowledge that the university should enjoy extensive freedom. The government should accept that the university ought to be the most independent, liberal and autonomous region within the country. The university should be, for the betterment of the society and the nation, a state within a country. Why does a university necessitate such autonomy, why does it require to be a state within a country? Autonomy is not an important characteristic of other human enterprises, but the universities cannot go without it. The developed countries that gathered a successive experience of supervising universities over last few centuries have admitted the autonomy and freedom of the universities. Taking decision of what is to be taught, who are to be taught, how to be taught and by whom to be taught; belongs only to the respective university, the country or government never attempts to preside over the issues. These countries keep confidence on the learned professors, and accept their pronouncements. Therefore, tracking on the developed nations, autonomy is the alienation of the universities. It has been noticed, throughout the world, over times, that non-autonomous universities could neither pose knowledge, nor assist the nation whereas the autonomous universities could perform both. Rather, non-autonomous universities produced only graduates-postgraduates, increased only the number of certified persons, took merely meaningless examinations and provided ranks among the personnel. But the autonomous universities enriched the world as well as their respective societies with enormous knowledge. An autonomous university can keep the nation alive with the anticipation of innovativeness while a non-autonomous university turns just into a government organization. Consequently, the nation, in order to sustain its existence, has to acknowledge the autonomy of a university. In independent Bangladesh, erstwhile public universities were granted autonomy for the first time by an act called 1973 Public University Ordinance. Though it has been amended several times, it acknowledged, for the first time, the significance of autonomy of the public universities. But the act, which declared that the public universities would enjoy autonomy, has been proved as a national deception like many other acts available in our country. This is because we enjoy no liberty in our public universities; these have always been under the control of the democratic governments. In Bangladesh, the government decides what issues should be taken into concern in the public universities; the government dominates over the protocol of the public universities. As a result, the public universities in Bangladesh, day by day, are being just government organizations, not the center of excellences that these were promised to be; and keep producing merely a good number of certified persons, not expansion of knowledge. Our universities now run as government institutions, like post-office, where only backwardness can easily be obtained. Knowledge refers to forwardness but public universities, currently, due to lack of exact autonomy, refer to backwardness. Since the public universities are not practicably autonomous, here the ‘government’ is the god; ‘government’ is the ultimate word. The spurious autonomy is what, for which, public universities cannot proceed on. Public universities in Bangladesh are now passing the worst period of time in the history; now we have no world class research, no mentionable production, no achievement in the field of advancement, and, on top of everything, no study and no discipline. We are now trapped into the politics, and, politics has been the regular exercise, occasionally regular ‘physical’ exercise, in all public universities. It is worth noting that democracy cannot scamper without politics. But if a public university, according to 1973 Public University Ordinance, had been given autonomy, it should have been a state within our country. It should have been free of anything that is not related to the aphorism of the university. But the actual phenomenon is simply the opposite. The political party, that remains in power, exercise student politics in the public university campuses. The student unions of the political parties therefore endeavor to have command over the residential halls and academic activities. The student unions of the political parties even employ arms in order to establish their ‘political’ doctrine in the campuses. For any issue, even it is very minor; they make the campus a front-line and make the vice chancellor bound to shut the university off for an uncertain period of time. The vice chancellor has become the most unsecured person in the present days. Regarding any trivial concern, it may even be why parasites taste a ‘student leader’, VC’s office is attacked. In Bangladesh, ruling the country is, perhaps, easier than ruling a university! Is there any university in this world, except ours, that gets uncertain period of closing for internal political clash? Of course not. Because the developed countries and their governments apprehend that they should make the universities autonomous, for their betterment, for their survival. But in our poor Bangladesh, true autonomy is much beyond from the provided, ridiculous, act that made us so-called autonomous. By Bangladeshi law, the VC of a public university has the power to make rules and regulations to control the students’ activities. But deficiency of proper autonomy does not allow the VCs to do so. Now the VCs, the most important but vulnerable persons in the public universities, are just bound to carry out what the government or elected political party longs for. What has such autonomy gifted us? It gifted uncertain period of closing of public universities, perdition of lots of general students, endless frustration of their poor families, immeasurable detestation to our beloved motherland, raise of question against the future of hundreds of students, conflict between the pupils, rival grouping among the friends, entrance of political nastiness in the divine campuses, arms in the hand of the students, numerous production of useless ‘student leaders’, meaningless wastage of valuable time, smashing of national properties, terrible impression to the new generation……the list has no end. Student politics is never a negative obsession. We cannot just throw out the reminiscences of the contribution of the student politics in the language movement of 1952 and in the glorious liberation war of 1971. But due to short of keen autonomy, our public universities do not have a control over student politics recent times. If we would have the real autonomy, it would have been simply possible to fetch out the best scheme of student politics and make it in use in case of any actual national crisis. But now, we are misfortunate enough that we cannot even apply student politics for demanding a true autonomy from the government; student politics is now dirtier than human-dung, nastier than the nastiest. We can only despise this scurrilous idiot conception. Now the phrase, student politics, is used for rowdyism taking the advantage of public university autonomy act. Few years ago, Dr Kamal Hussain, the veteran lawyer, politician, the honorable composer of the constitution of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the law minister in 1973 when university ordinance of 1973 was promulgated, regretted, ‘was autonomy of the public universities wrong?’. Certainly not. But it was not essentially what autonomy indicates to. Public universities need autonomy for making progress in the field of science and technology, public universities need autonomy for spreading out the light of knowledge, public universities need autonomy to enlighten the nation, public universities need autonomy to practise pure research works, and, public universities need autonomy to enhance the fame of country and nation throughout the world. Question may arise when true autonomy is basically the self-governance, are the public universities able to earn the amount of money that these need to continue? Public universities are social organizations included in the human enterprises that form a nation. But these are not business institutions like banks or insurance companies. These are pure educational institutes the aim of which is to produce learned and enriched citizens as well as to create new knowledge. Therefore, earning money is not the prime concern of the public universities. Moreover, public universities are not private universities which are more business institutions than are educational institutions. In addition, public universities do not have defense forces to protect themselves; public universities are, either partially or completely, dependant on the country. There is hardly any public university in the world that can earn the amount of money budgeted for it each year. If the countries refuse to provide economical feed back to the public universities, most of the public universities in the world will be abandoned within a month. The public universities, even being state within a country, need the country for financial support, and, on the other hand, the country needs public universities for her advancement in each sector. But this relationship will not result in any fruitfulness unless true autonomy for working is provided to the public universities. True autonomy can help a public university get rid of its futile students who will be in no use of the country, though, sorrowful fact is that, a public university has to tolerate its futile students and provide them ‘degree’ only because politically elected governments pressurize on it. Now we have, however, a democratic government. It is our responsibility to establish democratic values in the country and it is expected that all the public universities should now sprint in full swing. But everyday newspaper brings news of clash between two rival student groups of the student unions of the political party that is in power. University is a place of merit, not arsenal; we expect pupils here, not terrorists. If we can achieve a true autonomy, the universities can unquestionably continue their respective tasks, and undoubtedly, the terrorists, who were once admitted as students, will again turn into students. But the country has to decide, whether the significance of true autonomy in public universities should be overlooked. In 1937, the German dictator Adolf Hitler forced the German universities to be under his control. Later he had the university students joined the world war. The result of this was not very delightful for Germany, it was almost ruined and inflation cursed it for long time after it was defeated in world wars. In 1971, the Pakistani Martial Government first attempted to kill the university teachers and students to blockhead the nation. The result was not pleasant for them too. Within nine months, they had to extremely pay for it. Now, if Bangladesh government lets the phenomenon carry on in the public universities and does not make the public universities truly autonomous, who can predict, what atrocious future is waiting for Bangladesh? Mahmud Hasan 28.12.2009