Cultivating research mindset and critical thinking among students is important, but does this require foregoing the necessary academic routine of “teaching a course, administering tests, and grading students”?
University students’ mental health: Ask a student, “How are your studies going?” Don’t be surprised if they say one of two things, or both in reply: a) they are finding it difficult to concentrate; and b) they are struggling with a feeling of worthlessness. The two phenomena are intertwined with mental health.
For the HSC students in Bangladesh, when it comes to choosing a field of study, business and engineering have generally been the top picks for a long time. To access the lucrative career opportunities that both fields offer, young students with starry eyes and dreams aplenty enrol themselves in these two fields in the university of their choosing. Needless to say, education in this country isn t cheap and these students have to pay for it with the hard-earned money of their parents, and sometimes from their own pockets. How have they benefited? Have these universities, entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the business tycoons and ground-breaking inventors of the next generation, been able to deliver?
BUET students still remember Sabequn Nahar Sony who was killed in June 2002 during a fight between two rival political groups. Tragically, she died at the hands of a few wayward students at the very campus where she went to fulfil her dreams. In 2019, an undergrad student of Chittagong University was raped by a senior student of the same university. And in Sylhet s MC College, a gang-rape episode was again prime news recently. Campus violence has badly stained the academic environment for decades and women have often borne the brunt of such inhuman assaults.
The presence of female students in our higher education landscape goes back to 1921 when the University of Dhaka opened its doors. In the following 100 years, their presence has grown remarkably on campus as an index of equity, which is also a constitutional right. Unfortunately, their safety and security in the tertiary education environment remains uncertain. For many female students and their parents, the university campuse
It is 8.30 in the morning. Suman, a fourth-year student of one of the well-reputed universities of Bangladesh, walks towards the central library of his university. A wave of students is approaching the library at the same time. It may be a heartening sight for many, unaware of the reason behind the crowd. They are likely to assume that it s natural for university students to congregate daily at the library an important place on campus where learning is shared, strengthened and enhanced.
But the reason for the congregation is not a class project, or to learn from the latest journal articles, or to conduct research. They are gathering there to prepare for what is now one of the most lucrative jobs that many students crave: Bangladesh Civil Service.