A center of excellence in higher education in Bangladesh?

Five Bangladeshi terrorists killed 22 people in Dhaka. The identity of these terrorists revealed that they were regular guys, came from affluent families, actively used social media, and attended Bangladesh’s top-notch educational institutes. One terrorist, Nibras Islam, caused an uproar when people found out that he attended one of the first elite private universities of Bangladesh – North South University in Dhaka. Many well-off families in Bangladesh send their children to North South University (NSU) as it is considered the ‘center of excellence in higher education.’

Curious, I wanted to know more about the university – who are the people running such a top-notch educational institution? Who are the students? How do they maintain their excellence? I searched “North South University Dhaka” online for their website. Boom, it is just there! After browsing the site, here is what I’ve learned.

North South University students
North South University

Faculty

North South University boasts that 90% of its faculty members hold degrees from British, American, Australian, and Canadian universities. Visiting faculty members are also from foreign universities! Out of 399 faculty members in four schools, 270 are lecturers. That means many faculty members are also perhaps young and energetic. But surprisingly, the university does not reflect the energy of a modern, contemporary space for learning. There is no way to know what the faculty members are doing. What is their vibe? What is new with them? There is no blog – not from the university or any faculty members! All Quiet on the North-South Front!

Website

North South University has a carelessly designed website, poorly maintained, and rarely updated. The university’s homepage is primarily a bulletin board for notices and messages that behave strangely as the page is loaded with all kinds of design tricks – tickers, tabs, slides! The University’s mismatched home page and the rest of the page have many no-info links! The university’s Center for Information and Communication Technology, Academic Council, Curriculum Committee, Disciplinary Committee, etc. will not give visitors any information. The university will not provide social media links (they are at the bottom but do not work!).

Once a visitor is at the website’s admission section, there is no way to return to the home page! You must take admission!

All are there, from dead links, missing info, skewed pictures, and scripted typeface to misplaced commas. Sometimes visitors have no idea whether a link will take them to a webpage or a PDF file, a WORD document, or a JPEG document!

Student/Alumni

North South University’s student enrollment is about 15,000. There is no way to know what their campus life feels like! Visitors will not know anything about student activities – the sports they play, the drama they stage, the movies they watch, the volunteering work they do, the clubs they run, and the life they lead.

The university added a few links to their student alumni organizations: One here and another here. Another private alumni here is not mentioned on the university’s website. Another alumni link can be found on the LinkedIn page. Shockingly, that link is an adult website now! How come the ‘center of excellence in higher education’ of Bangladesh has a porn site linked with its alumni website!

What happens?

A quick check of the domain name history tells me that the Alumni Association of North South University (AANSU) perhaps once owned the domain name. AANSU.org was active without any changes for years until 2013! The alumni of NSU proudly added the link to their LinkedIn page and then forgot about it. Then the name perhaps expired, other entities owned it, and they started hosting whatever content they liked! No one from North South University ever cared or had time to update the link. Once (.org) expired, they entered another domain name (.net). BTW, does anyone remember the white house dot com saga?

Old and new alumni website of North South University of Bangladesh
Old and new alumni website of NSU

The university authority may have forgotten to update the information, but this was not intentional. Mistakes, typos, and oversights are done mainly by the lower-level clerks in Bangladesh! But these are undoubtedly embarrassing for any center of excellence. Why can not a university with all the PhD holders, imported overseas teachers, foreign-educated teachers, and IT department provide and present their information convincingly? If the university can not update its website information, how will it upgrade and uplift its students?

Like education, the internet is a great equalizer – it deserves constant attention.

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