How AIUB plans to enhance teaching quality, produce high quality graduates

In an interview with The Business Standard, Prof Dr Saiful Islam, Vice Chancellor, American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB), Kuratoli, Khilkhet, Dhaka , discusses the journey of the university so far and future plans. 

Compared to when the university was first established, how much of the goals from back then have you been able to achieve so far? Where do you want to see your institution in the next 10 years? 

If we look back toward 1995, when the University first started its journey, the future appeared to be much unpredictable in terms of what goals are to be achieved and what methodology which one should follow. At that time, the most important goal of the private universities was to create opportunities to provide University level teaching to the students of the country who were thinking of going abroad for their undergraduate studies. We were not so sure how a University would survive. We were not sure about how the University will get qualified teachers to maintain a good level of education. 

As we passed years, we found our way out. We have grown bigger in terms of volume of space, number of teachers, number of university maintaining officials, number of supporting people, office space, classrooms, classroom facilities, and modern teaching aids. We have built our own campus where we have students' relaxation space, well equipped auditorium, cafeteria, well equipped seminar halls, sports facilities, gymnasium facilities, swimming pool apart from the main required modern facilities of teaching and learning. From the viewpoint of the growth of the University, our achievement is quite good.

We are now capable of holding multiple international conferences in a year. We have enhanced our research activities. Most of our teachers are engaged in research works and publishing papers in international journals in addition to the journals at home. 

We are now concentrating on enhancing the quality of teaching and producing high quality graduates. For this purpose we are giving our efforts to recruit quality teachers and admitting students with better quality. 

In what areas do you see the most potential for research growth within the university? Are there any specific fields or projects you want to prioritize? 

For research purposes, we would like to encourage all the departments to come up. Considering the fact that significant changes, due to continuous evolution of novel techniques, technologies and materials, have been taking place in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, this field deserves special attention for research. Similarly, massive changes in computation techniques, new areas of application of computer technologies in every arena of human lives, development of new software, development of techniques of man-machine interface, continuous development of robotics, development of Artificial intelligence and its application in every sphere of our lives have made the Computer Science & Engineering a very strong area of research. We would like to follow the global trend in this regard. The areas of Physics and Chemistry have similar importance.

Many Bangladeshi universities struggle with limited research funding. How do you plan to address this challenge and improve your university's research output? 

For starting a research work, funding is not important. However, after a research plan is made then funding for specific purposes is necessary. For example: payment for procuring journal research papers, buying equipment and instruments for experiments, buying consumables for experiments, buying reagents and chemicals for laboratory experiments, buying a computer and a printer (if it is a computational work), expenses for carrying out field investigation, expenses for field data collection and survey, expenses for stationeries, payment for article publication charges/ page charges. We are bearing these expenses with a tight budget. However, for a large number of research projects, for equipment oriented and experimental research we need a large amount of research funds.

What steps are you taking to ensure that students are graduating with the skills required by employers? Do you plan to introduce curriculum reforms?

We always look at the application of the knowledge, in the job field and practical field, which we provide to our students. At the same time, we keep our eyes on the global trend. Accordingly, we adjust our course curriculum from time to time.

How do you plan to support students with entrepreneurial ambitions, especially in light of the growing startup culture in Bangladesh?

We encourage the students to grow with the idea of entrepreneurship and have their startups.  We shall help them in terms of giving any knowledge needed and any discussions needed.

How do you plan to improve collaboration between your university and international institutions to promote research, knowledge exchange, and opportunities for students to study or work abroad?

At the moment, our plan is to have teachers exchange, student exchange in small groups, working in joint research programs. We have a large number of MoUs with foreign Universities. We are already in the process of having teacher exchange and student exchange under these MoUs. At the moment, we are working on two foreign funded joint research programs with a number of foreign Universities and look forward to having some more joint research programs with foreign Universities soon.

What steps are you taking to make engineering and business faculties more aligned with the demands of Bangladesh's growing economy?

In this respect, the understanding that an engineering organization needs the knowledge and expertise of business subjects is clear. We shall work to encourage knowledge sharing and start joint research projects among the Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Business departments soon.