Our universities are producing graduates as human capital-

In an exclusive interview, Professor Dr. Chowdhury Mofizur Rahman, Vice Chancellor, United International University talked about the applicability of the curriculum being followed by the university business schools in consideration of the present market demand. Professor Rahman, a former Professor & Head, CSE Dept., BUET, has many years of experience as a senior teacher, and has been involved in the development of the business curricula in the country.

To a question relating to the business curricula followed by major universities including IBA (DU) and how relevant they are in the context of  the market demand, he said that  in the industries, demand for expertise and skills from their leaders and executives are sector specific. A university with a market oriented quality study programme along with the career outcome can serve that purpose. Universities with demand-based education programmes view its students  as customers and focus on how they need to reinvent themselves in order to stay relevant.

Today, one of the most in-demand business degrees is Business Administration that focuses on developing leadership and managerial skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills within the graduates in relation to different field of studies that hiring organizations find essential to workplace success.  He further said that in the presence of challenges from disruptive innovation, commoditization threat and continuous creation of market space in different industries, IBA and other renowned public and private universities in our country incorporate the latest development in their business curricula and constantly uplift their study programmes that best match with the industry requirements relating to expertise and skills. Essentially, I believe that, our universities are producing the graduates as human capital through their market-based study programmes, which are pivotal for Bangladesh to achieve its goal of sustainable development.

 We wanted to know as to what kind of curricula he has recommended for BBA and MBA programmes in his university. He replied, “For a long period of time we used to offer the following six major areas for BBA and MBA: Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Human Resources Management, International Business, and Management Information Systems.

Recently, we brought a significant change to curricula for BBA and MBA. Considering the technological developments and market demand we revised BBA and MBA curricula mainly in two respects - i) adapted technologies in the courses of existing majors, and ii) opened four new majors. 

For the technology adaptation we changed the existing majors’ name, e.g.,  ‘Finance’ to “Finance and FinTech’’ and wherever it is  possible to do so. In almost all existing majors we have added courses on “Ánalytics’’ such as “Marketing Analytics’’ ‘Financial Analytics”, “Financial Modeling”,  ‘Human Resource Analytics’’ and so on. We have opened the following four new majors:

i). Supply Chain Management

ii). Business Analytics (probably first in Bangladesh)

iii). Technology Management

iv). Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship

 While throwing light on the question like are the papers updated as per curricula followed by other major universities in the modern world, he said that papers (curricula) are updated and uploaded on the UIU website. The revision of the curricula was made through a rigorous process where the curricula of universities of the modern world were consulted. Our business school has been accredited by ACBSP in 2019 for a period of 10 years without any conditions or notes. Only two other business schools are ACBSP accredited in Bangladesh. ACBSP accreditation values our curriculum as of international standard. 

I wanted to know from him whether the curricula they follow match with the demand in the market, and whether BBA and MBA graduates of UIU feel confident to face any interview board. He answered affirmatively saying the curriculum meets the market requirement. He believes his

graduates should feel confident to face the interview board of modern organizations. UIU business alumni are well placed in Bangladesh and abroad, he informed.

As regards his plans for improving the curricula even further, Prof. Rahman said, “We have a curriculum committee where industry experts and foreign faculty members are members. We go through a periodic review of the curricula. We have started a faculty development program to teach and conduct research on the new curricula. We are inviting foreign faculty members from collaborating universities to train our teachers on technology integrated courses through an online platform.  The faculty training has been going on mostly on the tech-based courses. 

(Professor Dr. Chowdhury Mofizur Rahman is an Alumnus of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).  He completed B.Sc. in Electrical & Electronic Engineering with 1st Class Honours marks and subsequently MSc in Computer Science & Engineering. He received Monbusho scholarship from Japanese Government to pursue PhD Programme at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan and received his Ph.D. Degree in 1996.)