Bangladesh - developing since 1971

Bangladesh was born in the year 1971. It’s been a long 45 years journey and it’ll be going on till the time ends. We started as a very poor country, having numerous number of problems. For example, the poverty rate was very high, mortality and mobidity rate was very high, percentage of educated people was quite low, just to mention a few of them. Since 1971, the political situtation was not stable at all. Its obvious that, a new country in the midst of a very big democratic country like India, will face a lot of trouble. Despite all the negative factors and counterproductive impacts, people of Bangladesh have shown and done a real miracle. Instead of going downward, Bangladesh actually moved forward, which is indicated by the improvements in almost all the important and critical sector.

Poverty situation is far better than 1971. Rate of education is quite high. Child mortality andmorbidity rate had been decreased. The average age of people of Bangladesh was increased. People have created many economic activities in Bangladesh. Also, there are a lot of skilled labours and educated people are working in foreign countries and sending remittence. Number of primary, secoundary and higher educational institutions have been increaseing since the beginning of the nations. Both the government and private entities are involved in managing primary and secondary intitutions from the very beginning. It took a while for a private entity to participate in managing a university in Bangladesh. The very first private university was established in 1993 (verify). Since then, both the government and the private corporations/conglomarations are contributing to higher education sector in Bangladesh.

The purpose of this article is to analyze and compare public and private univesities. The information was collected from BANBEIS website (give a brief description). We will consider a few very basic questions to compare public and private universities. We will also analyze both the types based on their current status. While analyzing the available data, we found that, there are some more necessary analysis we are not able to complete, because of the lack of data. At the end of this article, we will try to give some suggestions, about how to include some more attributes in the available data, in order to improve the analysis.

Data Source

We have collected all the necessary university data from BANBEIS Bangladesh Educational Data, Chapter Eight. After a few modication and transformations, we have created necessary csv files, which can be found here. If you have any suggestion or question, please feel free to send your email to asifmadnan@hotmail.com. The list of public and private universities can also be viewed here.

Total University count and total student population

There are total 104 universities in Bangladesh. Where, the number of Public universities is 33, and number of private universities is 71.

Total number of students is 853267, where, student count in public universities is 454530, and student count in private universities is 398737. So, 53 percent of the university going students are public university students. On an average, there are 8204 students per university (public and private). For a public university, the average student count is 13774, and for a private university, this number is 5616.

In terms of largest student count for a public university, BANGLADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY has maximum of 243928 number of students. For avoiding biasness in terms of student count, we will ommit this university where student count was considered as an important measure. If we ommit this university, RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY is the larges public university having 33922 number of students. And, STAMFORD UNIVERSITY Bangladesh is the largest public university having 31691 number of students.

The oldest public (also the oldes in Bangladesh region) is the famous DHAKA UNIVERSITY which was established in 1921. Its current student population is 30834. There are total 73 number of departments having 2057 number of teachers. DHAKA UNIVERSITY’s teacher student ratio is 15, that is, there are 1 (one) teacher on an average for every 15 students. The oldest private university is NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY which was established in 1992. Its current student count is 21896, 465 number of teachers. The teacher student ratio of NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY is 47.

The above histogram shows the student count distribution of the public and private universities. In the diagram, the X-axis is represnting student total, and the Y-axis is representing number of universities having the corresponding student count (indicated by the X-axis). For both of the types (public and private), the left side seems quite heavy comparing to the right side. Of all the universities, 15 percent of the universities are having at least 10000 students. Where, 19 percent of the public universities have more than 10000 students and 14 percent of the private universities have more than 10000 students. In case of those universities having low student counts, 72 percet of the public universites have less than 5000 students, and 62 percent of the private universities have less than 5000 students.

Gender based summary

Public University

Gender distribution among the universities is very important. Throughout the globe, women are participating in every possible disciplines. In this part of the report, we will look at the female student and female teacher distribution both in public and private universities.

Following is a table, containing the lowest 10 public universities, in terms of percentage of female students. Among these 10 universities, 9 of them are technical and/or engineering universities. Only, the JAGANNATH UNIVERSITY is a university, having more general subjects.

Lowest female student percentage

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Percentage.of.Girl
15 DHAKA UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY ,GAZIPUR 2003 2485 6.84
29 RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2003 2961 12.26
23 KHULNA UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2003 3222 12.69
8 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF TEXTILE TEJGAON,DHAKA, Tenjgaon, Dhaka 2010 1614 13.69
11 CHITTAGONG UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2003 2960 14.97
6 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY(BUET) 1962 9855 19.36
26 PABNA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2010 1556 22.11
7 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF PROFESSIONALs 2010 1285 22.72
18 JAGANNATH UNIVERSITY 2005 18415 25.25
3 BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 2010 1350 27.11

The following table contains the 5 top universities having highest female student percentage.

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Percentage.of.Girl
16 HAJI DANESH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 1999 3369 41.17
5 BANGLADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY 1992 243928 42.43
31 SHER-E-BANGLA AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY 2001 2806 42.44
2 BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN AGRICULTURE UNIVERSITY 1998 708 46.05
9 BEGUM ROKEYA UNIVERSITY Rangpur 2010 4738 47.28

In terms of percentage of female faculty, the 5 low ranking universities are, 4 of which also has lowest female student percentage.

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher Percenage.of..Female
23 KHULNA UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2003 3222 223 6.73
29 RAJSHAHI UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY 2003 2961 182 8.79
27 PATUAKHALI SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 2001 2395 190 9.47
26 PABNA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2010 1556 106 10.38
3 BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 2010 1350 48 10.42

In terms of percentage of female faculty, the 5 top ranking universities are,

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher Percenage.of..Female
20 JATIYA KABI KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM UNIVERSITY 2006 3464 147 27.21
14 DHAKA UNIVERSITY 1921 30834 2057 27.71
5 BANGLADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY 1992 243928 116 30.17
33 THE UNIVERSITY OF BARISAL 2011 2289 91 32.97
18 JAGANNATH UNIVERSITY 2005 18415 499 36.87

Private University

Following is a table, containing the lowest 10 public universities, in terms of percentage of female students.

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Percentage.of.Girl
28 DHAKA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2000 6342 0.00
20 BGMEA UNIVERSITY OF Fashion AND TECHNOLOGY(BUFT) 2012 3541 7.77
60 SONARGAON UNIVERSITY 2012 581 8.09
13 ATISH DIPANKAR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2004 18319 9.73
53 PORT CITY INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2012 475 9.89
25 CITY UNIVERSITY, Dhaka 2002 7603 12.50
36 GREEN UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 2003 3165 12.73
32 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 2012 543 13.26
3 *FAREAST INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2013 304 14.80
38 IBAIS UNIVERSITY 2002 2030 15.71

Percentage of female students in DHAKA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY seems 0, which means, either, the value is wrong, or, its only for male student.

The following table contains the 5 top private universities having highest female student percentage.

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Percentage.of.Girl
46 MANARAT INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2001 3691 43.97
24 CHITTAGONG INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY 2013 219 44.29
21 BRAC UNIVERSITY 2001 7236 47.51
23 CENTRAL WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY 1993 241 100.00
34 FIRST CAPITAL UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH, Chuadanga 2012 523 181.26

Percentage of female students in FIRST CAPITAL UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH, Chuadanga is more than 100. Definitely the value is wrong.

In terms of percentage of female faculty, the 5 low ranking private universities are

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher Percenage.of..Female
22 BRITANIA UNIVERSITY 2011 534 13 0.00
60 SONARGAON UNIVERSITY 2012 581 77 3.90
34 FIRST CAPITAL UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH, Chuadanga 2012 523 33 9.09
42 ISHAKHA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH 2012 715 32 9.38
49 NORTH EAST UNIVERSITY BANGLADESH 2012 972 62 9.68

Interestingly, BRITANIA UNIVERSITY does not have any female faculty member.

In terms of percentage of female faculty, the 5 top ranking private universities are,

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher Percenage.of..Female
63 STAMFORD UNIVERSITY Bangladesh 2002 31691 447 44.30
14 B.G.C TRUST UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH 2001 6252 137 44.53
59 SHANTA MARIOUM UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY 2003 6018 302 49.67
39 INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH 1993 4989 134 56.72
18 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES 2012 181 98 57.14

Teacher student ratio

Teacher student ration is a god indication of the quality of an educationla institution. In this article, we used TSR to represent Teacher-Student-Ratio, which mean, one teacher for how many students. As the lectures are provided in class room setting, students rely on the teachers for the course materials. And, as a person has limited ability to conduct with multiple persons to deliver quality education, the ratio is sort of a measure, how an educational institution is managing its quality.

The lower the TSR, we presume, the better quality of education. Especially, for large student body university having multiple departments, a lower TSR would definitely mean, any given student has more chance to get access to his/her faculty, comparing to a student, having higher TSR.

The total number of teachers in all the Bangladeshi universities is, 23934. Where, the public university teacher count is, 11439, and private universities have 12495 teachers. The original data source did not distinguish any faculty, professor, lecturer, reserach, etc. and refer every person related to teaching as teacher. We also adopted this notion, and refer everyone related to teaching as teacher.

The above histogram shows the distribution of TSR for public and private universities. The public universitities having lowest and higherst TSRs are, respectively,

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher TSR
1 BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIB MEDICAL UNIVERSITY 1998 1588 425 4
24 MOWLANA BHASANI SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 1999 3090 59 52

Similarly, the private universitities having lowest and higherst TSRs are, respectively,

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher TSR
181 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES 2012 181 98 2
58 ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA 2003 7832 35 224

If we consider only the universities having monre than 5000 students, the combined university ranking based on TSR value will be as follows

Universities having lowest TSR

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher TSR Type
4 BANGLADESH AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY 1961 5395 604 9 Public
211 BRAC UNIVERSITY 2001 7236 535 14 Private
6 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY(BUET) 1962 9855 652 15 Public
14 DHAKA UNIVERSITY 1921 30834 2057 15 Public
10 CHITTAGONG UNIVERSITY 1966 20332 1112 18 Public
30 SHAHJALAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 1986 8497 485 18 Public
91 AHSANULLAH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 1995 7922 396 20 Private
301 EAST WEST UNIVERSITY 1996 10499 516 20 Private
59 SHANTA MARIOUM UNIVERSITY OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY 2003 6018 302 20 Private
5 BANGLADESH OPEN UNIVERSITY 1992 243928 116 21 Public

In the above 10 universities, 6 of them are public universities, and 4 of them are private universities.

Universities having highest TSR

Name Year.of.establishment Total.Student Total.Teacher TSR Type
161 BANGLADESH UNIVERSITY 2001 6972 131 53 Private
121 ASIAN UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 1996 10820 199 54 Private
251 CITY UNIVERSITY, Dhaka 2002 7603 130 58 Private
131 ATISH DIPANKAR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 2004 18319 310 59 Private
69 UNITED INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2003 16295 268 61 Private
67 THE PEOPLES UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 1996 7784 122 64 Private
151 BANGLADESH ISLAMI UNIVERSITY 2005 8791 133 66 Private
63 STAMFORD UNIVERSITY Bangladesh 2002 31691 447 71 Private
71 UNIVERSITY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE (UITS) 2003 25357 305 83 Private
58 ROYAL UNIVERSITY OF DHAKA 2003 7832 35 224 Private

Interestingly, the 10 universities having the highest TSR, all of them are private universities. Lets look at the TSR values for private universities established before the year 2000 and having 5000 students.

Name Year.of.establishment Department Total.Student Total.Teacher TSR
9 AHSANULLAH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY 1995 9 7922 396 20
30 EAST WEST UNIVERSITY 1996 10 10499 516 20
40 INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY, CHITTAGONG 1995 12 9756 365 27
10 AMERICAL INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 1995 4 11056 363 30
41 INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS, AGRICULTURE and TECHNOLOGY (IUBAT) 1993 39 8000 256 31
28 DHAKA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY 2000 12 6342 200 32
50 NORTH SOUTH UNIVERSITY 1992 NA 21896 465 47
12 ASIAN UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 1996 13 10820 199 54
67 THE PEOPLES UNIVERSITY OF BANGLADESH 1996 15 7784 122 64

Clearly, the universities in the above list, having lower TSR, had taken necessary measures to improve the quality of education throughout the time. Unfortunately, the universities having higher TSR values, failed to take necessary measures to increase the nymber of faculty members against the student body. We are not concluding the quality of education they are providing, but, it is obvious that, it should be investigated, why, these universities did not increase the faculty number throughout the time.

Year by year number of public universities

In this section, we will show, number of universities, during different time. There were, 6 number of universities, before 1971, the year Bangladesh became Indipendent. After independence, during seventies, Bangladesh goverment had established 1, followed by 2 universities during the eighties. A significant 20 numbers of universities were established in between 1990 and 2000, of which, 5 were public and 15 were private universities.

A total of 57 universities were established in the era 2000-2010, of which 18 are public university and 39 are private universities. Of the total 18 universities established after 2010, 1 are public universities and 17 are private universities.

The following box plots will show summary of the universities for different parameters established in different decades.