Remove politically appointed VCs
The highly condemned administrations of public universities, appointed on political consideration by the last government, have unfortunately been continuing for one and half years longer than their terms. But, recently, the government has changed vice-chancellors (VCs) in the some of the public universities.
The government may be thinking that the VCs and Pro-Vice Chancellors (pro VC) of Dhaka and Chittagong Universities were selected according to the 1973 act of the Dhaka and Chittagong Universities. But the actual fact is that the VC of Chittagong University was not elected by the senate, as stipulated in the Chittagong University Act 1973, but chosen by the then Jamat-BNP government.
Since the central thrust of the government is fight against corruption, it can remove the corrupt VCs and pro-VCs and appoint corruption free administrations in the premier seats of learning, and motivate and educate the students, the future leaders of the country, against corruption.
We had observed throughout the last few years that some vice- chancellors of public universities were engaged in administrative and financial dishonesty.
These VCs had appointed many teachers to different administrative positions of the universities, like provosts and house tutors of the halls, considering their political identity.
It is reasonably possible to make a change in the administrations of public universities by just changing the VCs and pro-VCs. It will be possible for newly appointed VCs and pro-VCs to appoint competent and non-political teachers to different posts of the university administration.
There are many eligible university teachers who do not belong to any politically motivated groups like blue, white, red, pink etc. The government can appoint VCs and pro-VCs from those teachers to bring about a qualitative change in the university administration.
So we feel that the present anti-corruption drive will get an impetus if the government makes immediate arrangements to change the VCs and pro-VCs of different public universities.
We would like to propose that the present government should appoint VCs and pro-VCs from the senior teachers of each public university. According to a number of newspaper reports, the government has already collected names of twenty professors from each university according to seniority and prepared a panel.
We would like to urge the government to appoint VCs and pro-VCs from this panel. The sooner the government brings a change in the university administration the clearer will be its good intention to bring about a depoliticised education administration.
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