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Bangladeshi universities are lagging behind the world ranking in terms of quality research, publications and graduate ranking and reputation.
Academics also attributed such poor show to no recruitment of qualified teachers, graduate ranking and reputation and poor presence of foreign teachers and students.
A number of universities in India, China, Pakistan and Singapore are moving upwards in the ranking but Bangladeshi universities are still lagging behind only due to shortcomings in few criteria, they said
Contacted, University Grants Commission (UGC) former Chairman Prof Abdul Mannan told The Business Post: “We are not performing well in ranking due to unavailability of information about our universities and a few foreign students and teachers.”
He said the universities would have to carry out quality research and bring out publications along with steps to update their websites with available information to get expected place in the ranking.
The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) on Wednesday published the world university rankings for 2023 in which no Bangladeshi public or private universities obtained no place at the top 500 universities.
The positions of Dhaka University (DU) and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) remained unchanged in the third-lowest bracket (801-1,000), certainly an abysmal show on the global stage.
Brac University and North South University were placed in the second-lowest bracket (1001-1200).
The QS authorities assessed 1,400 higher educational institutions worldwide for this year’s rankings, based on six specific criteria. These are academic peer review (40%), teacher-student ratio (20%), research (20%), graduate reputation or efficiency (10%), international student ratio (5%) and international teacher or performance ratio (5%).
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) remains the world’s number one university for the 11th year in a row. The University of Cambridge has upgraded its position to take the 2nd place from the 7th of last year.
Stanford University, University of Oxford, Harvard University, and California Institute of Technology are placed at 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th positions respectively in the ranking.
Nine Indian institutes made it to the top 500 global universities while three Pakistani universities also are on the list. A total of 26 Asian universities secured positions in the top 100 universities of the world.
DU Vice-Chancellor Prof Md Akhtaruzzaman on Saturday said: “We do not pay attention to the ranking. We want to improve the quality of education and expand the field of basic research, the parameters that exist for ranking in the international arena.”
“If we can build a university in the light of these indicators, then the place of our expectation in the international arena will be clearer,” he added
Former Vice Chancellor of DU Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique told The Business Post that the world ranking was being publishing based on specific criteria but the information of Bangladeshi universities about those criteria was not reaching them due to unavailability of information.
He said: “I think a working plan needs to improve some criteria to get good place in world ranking because we have a good number of universities compared to many universities of our neighbouring countries including Pakistan which are achieving top position in the world ranking.”
Educationist Prof Syed Manzoorul Islam said research is the key to securing a good position in the global rankings. “Our quality of research is poor. That is why the research we produce fails to meet international standards.”
He said: “Our universities score poorly in the individual performance indicators of the global rankings, which leads to a decline in overall scores.”
