Private edn instts thrive despite poor teaching
Shakhawat Hossain

The private educational institutions are thriving across the country and making hefty profits which are being used to enrich the directors and increase the number of their assets rather than being invested for improving the quality of teaching which is poor to say the least, said experts while quoting a public survey.
   A recent survey of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics revealed that the number of private schools and colleges in the country rose to 78,679 in 2004-05 from 54,360 in 1995-96, registering a tremendous growth rate of 44.73 per cent.
   The number of universities rose to 54 in 2005-06 from 16 in 1995-96, colleges to 3,148 from 1,521, junior schools to 17,862 from 13,110 and madrassahs to 25,698 from 13,822.
   The private universities, colleges and English medium schools amassed profits of Tk 423.2 crore in one decade, mainly from fees for tuition, admission, session, development and extra-curricular activities which have often been increased arbitrarily without taking into account the difficulties faced by the guardians.
   Another large source of income of these private educational bodies is donations from the government and the people, added the survey.
   Experts said lack of investment by the successive governments in public sector education was helping the private sector educational bodies, whose teaching quality is not up to mark, to increase in number by leaps and bounds.
   They criticised the private educational institutions because the sordid pursuit of profit seems to have been their one and only purpose. They sought the government’s intervention in order to tackle the problems of these mushrooming private schools and colleges.
   Private sector institutions may satisfy the demand for higher education in the emerging upper middle-class but they are motivated solely by profit, said the Bangladesh Economic Association’s president, Dr Quazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmed.
   Ahmed, who is the co-chairman of the recently formed Education Policy Formulation Committee, said, ‘Education should not be treated as a commodity.’
   A former adviser of the caretaker government, Akbar Ali, said many private colleges and universities were not sticking to the rules, which lowers the quality of teaching and deprives the students of a proper education.
   Professor Sirajul Islam Chowdhury of Dhaka University said the main aim of the private educational institutions was to do business in the name of education.
   He hoped that the committee working on the new education policy would come up with suggestions to solve the multifarious problems, and address the numerous shortcomings, of private education in the country
   The government in the past had planned to impose income tax on profit-making private educational institutions, but failed to do so due to pressure from ‘vested quarters.’
   Former secretary of the Private University Association, AK Qureshi, admitted that the private educational bodies had made considerable profits but said that they were being reinvested for the improvement of educational quality and expansion of their activities.
   There was nothing wrong with making profit if it can be gained by adhering to the existing rules and regulations, he said.
   Experts said the private educational institutions are investing their profits to increase the number of their assets and properties, and are even in indulging in unnecessary expenditures, but are doing little or nothing to improve the standard of teaching.
   The BBS’s survey said the income of the private educational institutions stood at Tk 6,038.9 crore against the operational expenses of Tk 1,577.8 crore in the above-mentioned nine-year period.
   The lion’s share of the private educational bodies’ expenses went for house/office rent (27.18 per cent). Admission, registration and examination fees given to the government education board and university (10.18 per cent) and repairing and maintenance costs (8.98 per cent) are the other major heads of expenditure.
   Besides, they spent 7.54 per cent to purchase teaching materials and research books, 5.32 per cent to hold the annual sports competitions and the milads, and 3.58 per cent to pay for advertisement.
   A good amount, or nearly 6 per cent of the total expense, is spent for entertainment, maintenance of vehicles and cost of fuel, said the BBS’s survey.
   Some 38 per cent of the total income of these private institutions was generated from tuition fees (28.36 per cent from students and 8.41 per cent from the government), and donations contributed 28 per cent (9.73 per cent from person/institutions and 15.11 per cent from the government).
   Admission fees (3.83 per cent), session fees (2.90 per cent), development fees (4.98 per cent), examination fees (4.32 per cent), extra-curricular fees (0.44 per cent) and income from other heads (20.20 per cent) account for the rest of their income.

Source: http://www.newagebd.com/2009/jun/24/front.html
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