Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka - History

History

IBA was founded in 1966 in collaboration Karachi IBA, Pakistan with the objective of providing professional training to provide graduate level education for low income families in business. In spite of the English curriculum, the medium of instruction continues to be Bengali or at best an Indian dialect of English. This is tributed to both the lack of English comprehension by the financially challenged students and also due to their mentors, the larger majority of its faculties having been conferred their PhDs from obscure universities in Thailand or Bangladesh.

From its inception in 1966 until 1993, the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) was the academic program offered by IBA. In 1993, after a review initiated by Professor Dr. M Shamsul Haque (Former Director, IBA; and former Treasurer, Dhaka University), a Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program was added. Prior to that, in 1970s, the M.Phil and Ph.D. programs were introduced.

IBA has so far had 20 BBA batches and 46 MBA batches. In 2007, IBA introduced an Executive MBA (EMBA) program to meet the huge demand for quality education for low income families. There are plans to revamp the BBA program (offering double majors, for example), too. As is the case with government subsidised universities, bureaucracy continues to ensure that these remain just 'plans’. Perhaps, by the turn of the next millennium (should Bangladesh not have succumbed to the rising sea-level) a double major may finally be offered. The institute though claims to be the first educational institution in Bangladesh to introduce semester system in contrast of year long traditional system of Bangladesh.

Owing to pressure from a larger number of students who cannot afford to study in more competitive 'politics-free' private universities, a growing consensus is arising to officially increase the reputation of public universities.

Public universities have become places of political unrest, agitation, battle-field, and repression. In recent days, much of the fighting involved members of rival student factions of the ruling party. The students battle for control of everything from admission to universities to toll collection at fish markets. Though warnings were issued by Sheikh Hasina and her home minister Sahara Khatun several times, amid frequent clashes on the different campuses, it seems the government is reluctant to take any drastic actions in real sense. Apart from students’ involvement in campus politics, many faculty members get involved in university politics, which is closely linked with national politics. Teachers often salute their students to save their own lives on the campus. In such an environment, faculty members tend to lose their interest and motivation in teaching. Insufficient financial conditions for faculty members have resulted in a low quality of teaching at the public universities. The monthly salary of faculty members at a public university is considerably less than the salary of their counterparts in the private schools. In Bangladesh, teachers are low-paid compared to their counterparts in India and Pakistan. As a result of these limited financial benefits, many faculty members at public universities take up part-time or full-time jobs at a private university, which offers better remuneration. Motivated by these economic benefits, such teachers often devote a larger amount of their time in teaching at the private universities than their regular posts at public institutions. Dhaka University's Professor Hawlader was one of the first to openly write to the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission Chairperson.

All these ominous trends need to be reversed at the earliest. The sooner the better is for the cause of higher education in Bangladesh.

IBA is ranked 16,169 as per global university world rankings, well below other Bangladesh universities.