Recruitment practices at the university faculty positions in Bangladesh are quite different from other countries like USA, UK, Australia, Japan, Korea etc. The PhD degree is the minimum entry requirement in those countries for a university faculty position. But it is quite different in the case of Bangladesh universities especially public universities. Usually, a potential candidate starts his/her career as a Lecturer and without exceptions, they are not being recruited directly in any other positions like Assistant Professor/Associate Professor/Professor in Bangladesh. This is being practised with a view to maintaining a healthy academic discipline from the point of batch or age especially.
PhD is not the minimum requirement for the entry (Lecturer) position rather Bangladesh public universities recruit faculties based on bachelor and master’s degree results along with a certain GPA (at least 4.5/5.0) in both secondary school certificate (S.S.C.) & higher secondary certificate (H.S.C.) exams. Actually, honours or honours master’s degree is enough to judge a potential candidate for any discipline. Merely PhD, wherever it’s from may not be enough to judge a candidate since PhD is focused on a narrowed single issue. Yes, one may ask so why all the universities abroad are practising different! We have a quite different academic environment in Bangladesh. There are no teaching assistants (TA), research assistants (RA) who are mainly dealing with the class lectures, examination invigilation etc. in other countries, usually what our lecturers do. That is why fresh graduates with bright academic background along with certain practical experience especially for technical universities are preferred for Lecturer positions and after the initial probation period (1 or 2 years), they are off to PhD degree from the renowned universities home and abroad.
In fact, the primary approach is that the recruited teacher should have the capability of conducting the class on any undergraduate course in the department and for higher grade like conducting classes or research activities in M.Sc. or PhD level, the department needs specialist teacher with PhD degree. That means PhD degree holders faculties are mainly responsible for Masters or PhD level and more especially for the research activities like thesis supervision, project supervision etc. The way to find out the most suitable lecturer candidate without exception is evaluation of Honors and Masters result which reflects the continuous assessment record of 6-7 years of a candidate who deal mainly with the undergraduate courses.
By the way, PhD as the entry requirement seems to be much more effective if the university is completely research-oriented but of course, considering the honours and master’s degree results too. Because any poor CGPA holder at bachelor and masters level may have PhD from any university with self-fund and may claim for his/her candidacy for university faculty. S.S.C. & H.S.C. results for faculty recruitment seem to be unusual because these might be the entry requirements for university (as a student) what s/he obviously got passed. May be university authorities in Bangladesh are seeking anyone having the brightest academic background in all the levels passed to ensure the best candidate. Actually, they enhanced the filtering level a bit more to make sure the brilliance. 😊
One more thing to include, those who are being recruited as per the existing rules are not the wrong choice of course even from the PhD point of view. Because everyone is getting their PhD (of course there’s some exception) as they are the topmost brilliant students of the batches. And one should not compare anyone from merit position (1-7 in general rules) in honours-masters with any PhD holders having no position in the previous level. Either the current recruitment process should be kept running or all PhD holders should be taken in the entry position with a complete change in recruitment rules. If both the methods work together, there is a possibility of creating a kind of chaotic situation with seniority in the university.
If we want to expand our research activities further, then all the universities have to be research-oriented, excluding the current practice. Universities will act as a pure research centre and then PhD may be the entry requirement obviously with TA, RA positions being created. So that PhD holding faculties can emphasize on research activities from the very beginning rather than course works.
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