EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

 

Decline in poverty rate

Widening income gap challenging

The Household Income and Expenditure survey (HIES), 2010 has come up with some good news. The poverty rate at the national level has gone down by 8.5 per cent between 2005 and 2010. In absolute terms, this is no mean achievement, given the shock of global recession and internal political instabilities it had to absorb along the way.

The overall decline in poverty, however, does not reflect the proportionate distribution of national income among the different sections of the population. The Gini coefficient, for instance, has fallen by only 0.009, from 0.467 in 2005 to 0.458 in 2010. It reflects the lack of matching performance by the economy in addressing the ever-widening income gap. As Gini ratios serve to measure per capita income inequality vis-à-vis average increase in social income, it becomes obvious that far from moving towards an equitable distribution of wealth, it has rather remained concentrated in a few hands.

During the five-year survey period, traditional poverty pockets in Rajshahi and Rangpur could not show any significant improvement. Driven perhaps by climate change, Barisal division, which was once known for its surplus crops, has now joined the rank of poorer districts with a poverty rate of 40 per cent.

On a par with the general decline in average poverty level, rural as well as urban poverty has also diminished between 2005 and 2010. That brings to the fore government's continued emphasis on poverty alleviation through various income generation programmes for the poor. We cannot also forget the contribution being made by the non-government organisations (NGOs) in addressing poverty, especially in the countryside.

To help reduce rural poverty, the visible shift in the people's dietary patterns from cereals dominated

meals to a wider basket of potato, fish and meats deserves mention.

While the economy's overall performance is praiseworthy in terms of combating poverty, there are still genuine reasons for caution seeing that increase in social income has not readily translated into reduction in the rich-poor gap. 

UGC survey of public varsities

It is an eye-opener

The University Grants Commission survey findings about five public universities are certainly worrying. The survey, which covered the universities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi and the Bangladesh Agricultural University, reveals the depressingly low standards to which teaching has declined among a large number of academics. When 28 per cent of teachers are observed to be extremely poor in teaching, when indeed the quality of research work undertaken by academics (13 per cent of teachers are not into research at all, while only 20 per cent are doing very well) does not conform to regional or international standards, it is time for us to sit up and take notice. There would be little point in arguing that beyond this 28 per cent are those teachers who appear to have been doing a good job. The fact is that teaching at the public universities must be of a uniformly high quality which demonstrates the intellectual excellence of academics.

The irony is that while in recent years there has been an increase in the number of universities in the private sector, such an increase has not been matched by enhanced standards of classroom performance by academics. The roots of the problem of course lie in the questionable means of teachers' recruitment over the years. Individuals not qualified to teach at universities or with partisan political loyalties have come into the profession. At the other end, a rather large number of good teachers have made their way out of the country to teach at foreign universities. Add to that the growing tendency among public university teachers to go for well-paying part time teaching jobs at the private universities. Where opportunities for research are the issue, fund constraints at the public universities have by and large stymied the growth and expansion of academic excellence.

There are priorities that need handling here. In the first place, appointment of low quality or politically affiliated teachers must be put a stop to. In the second, serious thought must be given to salary increases for teachers as well as funds availability for research at the public universities. Mediocrity is not what universities are for.