Academic freedom was never really a thing in Bangladesh, despite nonsensical utterances about “Oxford of the East”. Things have only gotten worse since the one-party, one-family dictatorship came to power in 2008 and got rid of free elections and a free press. Universities themselves are little more than factories to nurture and produce the armed vigilantes of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL)—the regime’s version of Iran’s Basij militia. Exams, dormitories, curriculum, and ‘research’ are all controlled by BCL cadres at Bangladesh public colleges and universities. Thus it is little surprise that the few independent thinkers left on the faculties of these institutions are being silenced for the slightest deviation of the ‘official’ version of history (kinda like they did in Iran and earlier in the USSR).
This brings up a question which is dear to me as a higher education professional: should Western universities—I am referring to the ones in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada—continue to accept the credentials generated by Bangladesh’s public universities at face value? There is no guarantee that a grade recorded in a transcript reflects quality or substance of the work done by pupils; there is no assurance that any scholarship thus transcribed means what it is supposed to mean at any level. Even at the graduate school level at premier public institutions, regime-affiliated “scholars” rely mostly on plain old plagiarism for their credentials including their PhDs.
I’d think that there needs to be a moratorium by universities and immigration authorities when it comes to accepting the academic work from Bangladeshi students and scholars whose educational records are issued by public colleges and universities in Bangladesh. During the moratorium some process can be created to adequately vet the integrity of the actual work behind these records so that those genuinely interested in furthering their studies can be welcomed to the West while the regime-affiliated poseurs can be turned away.