A university is fundamentally an institution devoted to the pursuit, creation, and dissemination of knowledge. Its principal strengths lie in its teachers, researchers, and students.
The fundamental responsibilities of a university teacher are to provide quality instruction, conduct research, and contribute to the intellectual development of students. University administration is also important, but its primary purpose should be to support and facilitate academic activities.
Yet, in the reality of many public universities in Bangladesh, one sometimes gets the impression that securing administrative positions and titles has become more attractive than teaching and research. In some cases, unhealthy competition and factional politics also revolve around these positions.
Who is the vice-chancellor, who is the pro-vice-chancellor, who is the dean, who is the provost, who is the proctor or assistant proctor, who is the student adviser, and which teacher chairs an important committee—these questions often receive far more attention than whether a teacher is delivering quality instruction, how much progress they are making in research, or how significantly they are contributing to students' intellectual and academic development.
Even when attempts are made to ensure effective accountability regarding whether teachers regularly attend classes, the quality of their teaching, or their commitment to advancing their own knowledge and that of their students, various complications often arise.
This situation compels us to reconsider the institutional priorities and academic values of our universities.
A university teacher may be expected to serve simultaneously as a dean, provost, hall tutor, proctor, assistant proctor, student adviser, member of various inquiry and procurement committees, participant in admissions and examination processes, and organiser of numerous events. Many of these responsibilities are necessary for the effective functioning of a university.
The problem is not that these responsibilities exist. Rather, it concerns whether duties are allocated rationally, whether time is managed effectively, and whether their impact on teaching and research is adequately considered.
Sometimes, a teacher is assigned several administrative responsibilities at once. In other cases, an individual is repeatedly appointed to different administrative positions over an extended period. For some, continuing to hold administrative office or securing yet another position appears to have become a significant component of their professional lives.
Naturally, discharging these responsibilities consumes a considerable amount of a teacher's time and attention.
As a result, the time available for preparing lessons, engaging academically with students, writing research papers, conducting research, and supervising students may become increasingly limited. Research, in particular, requires sustained concentration and long-term planning—both of which are difficult to maintain amid the demands of routine administrative work.
Consider the responsibilities of a residential hall provost or tutor. They must deal with accommodation, seat allocation, food quality, security, staff management, infrastructural problems, complaints, and a wide range of student demands.
Although these matters are directly related to student welfare, not all of them fall within a university teacher's specialised professional competence. Employing trained administrative personnel to manage such routine operational responsibilities could give teachers greater opportunities to fulfil their primary academic duties.
Teaching and administration are interconnected, but they are distinct fields requiring different sets of skills. There is no sound basis for assuming that an excellent teacher will automatically become an effective administrator. Likewise, there is no guarantee that an efficient administrator will necessarily be a good teacher.
A clear division of responsibilities and effective coordination between academic leadership and professional administration are therefore essential to modern university management.
Teachers and researchers must play a leading role in determining academic policies, developing curricula, establishing research priorities, and maintaining educational standards. Meanwhile, trained administrative personnel can make important contributions to human resource management, accommodation, transportation, security, infrastructure, and routine student services.
Public universities in Bangladesh could expand such arrangements in accordance with their needs and financial capacity. The objective is not to detach teachers entirely from administrative responsibilities, but to create greater opportunities for them to fulfil their academic duties, enhance their professional competence and excellence, and make administrative operations more efficient and accountable.
Another dimension of the problem is that administrative positions are sometimes regarded less as platforms for discharging institutional responsibilities and more as means of acquiring personal status, influence, and privileges. When certain positions carry special honoraria, allowances, or decision-making authority, competition for them can intensify.
This raises an important question: to what extent are genuine merit and institutional needs taken into account when appointments are made? We cannot ignore concerns about whether personal preferences, political allegiance, regional identity, or family connections influence such decisions.
This issue is also connected with faculty politics. When competition for administrative positions and institutional influence intensifies, questions and suspicions frequently arise about the role of political allegiance in appointments. Such tendencies may also discourage teachers from expressing independent opinions or taking principled positions.
However, faculty politics cannot be explained solely in terms of administrative positions and associated privileges. Ideological commitments, professional interests, and broader political realities also play a role. Nevertheless, when administrative office becomes the principal measure of status and professional success within the academic community, there is a risk that teachers' interest in and dedication to their fundamental academic responsibilities will diminish.
Another important consideration in allocating administrative responsibilities is coordination with the relevant academic department.
Before assigning a teacher a substantial additional responsibility that will consume significant time, the administration should consult the teacher's home department. In practice, there are instances in which a teacher is appointed as a provost, proctor, assistant proctor, hall tutor, or to another administrative position, and the departmental authorities learn of the appointment only upon receiving the official notification.
Yet the same teacher remains responsible for regular classes, examinations and assessments, student supervision, research, and other departmental duties.
There is a clear inconsistency here. If a teacher wishes to teach a course in another department, the potential impact on the academic planning and teaching commitments of their home department is taken into consideration. Yet when assigning administrative duties that may consume a substantial portion of the working week, the same level of coordination is not always evident.
This does not mean that newly appointed teachers should never be given administrative responsibilities. They, too, may be entrusted with such duties on the basis of their competence and institutional needs.
However, before making an appointment, it is essential to consider the teacher's capabilities, the scope of the proposed responsibilities, and their likely impact on teaching and research. If a teacher is appointed to an administrative position soon after joining the university, questions may reasonably arise about their suitability and the rationale behind the appointment—particularly when the selection criteria are unclear.
In such cases, obtaining the opinion of the department chair and, where appropriate, consulting the departmental academic committee could be made part of the appointment process.
At the same time, administrative responsibilities should not become an excuse for avoiding regular classes, assessments, or departmental duties. The duration of appointments, scope of responsibilities, and accountability requirements must be clearly defined.
An administrative position is not simply an opportunity to enjoy privileges; it entails an institutional responsibility. It is therefore necessary to ensure that teachers continue to fulfil their fundamental academic obligations alongside their administrative duties.
A university's success cannot be measured by the number of committees formed, meetings held, or teachers occupying administrative positions.
What matters is the quality of education students receive, the originality and quality of the research produced, and the institution's contribution to the advancement of knowledge.
If a teacher cannot conduct classes regularly, devote adequate time to students, or maintain continuity in research because of administrative commitments, administrative achievements cannot compensate for these shortcomings.
Conversely, if efficient administration improves teachers' working conditions, expands research opportunities, and ensures effective student services, it can make a genuine contribution to the university's progress.
What we need, therefore, is not an aversion to administration, but **administration that gives priority to academic excellence**.
Administrative positions must be regarded as responsibilities to be discharged, not symbols of prestige. The quality of teaching, the excellence of research, and the intellectual development of students must receive due importance in the university's systems of evaluation and performance assessment.
Universities are often filled with administrative duties, meetings, committees, conferences, and various formal engagements. Meanwhile, even in research, the emphasis sometimes falls more heavily on increasing publication counts, meeting promotion requirements, and securing institutional recognition than on opening new horizons of knowledge or making original contributions.
Consequently, the question remains: how much importance is actually being given to the fundamental purposes of teaching and research—the pursuit and creation of knowledge and the intellectual development of students?
Amid all these activities, are students regularly finding their teachers in the classroom at the appointed time, as they rightly expect? Are they receiving the kind of teaching that enables them to ask questions without hesitation, learn to think independently beyond the confines of textbooks, and draw inspiration for their intellectual development from their teachers' knowledge, research, and character?
Finding answers to these questions is essential to the long-term interests of our universities.
We may be able to fulfil an administrative function by appointing a teacher to an administrative position. But if that appointment comes at the expense of the teacher's teaching and research, we must also consider the overall costs and benefits of the decision.
The true prestige of a university lies not in the number of administrative titles and positions it distributes, but in its pursuit of knowledge, quality teaching, and original research.
Teachers may be entrusted with administrative responsibilities, but their primary identity must not disappear behind those responsibilities.
**Teachers must be allowed to remain teachers.** For however efficient a university's administration may be, its ultimate success depends on how effectively it contributes to teaching and the creation of knowledge.