The private universities in the capital city got permission to run their academic and administrative activities in the temporary campus for five years only. After the sanctioned period, the authorities are supposed to shift temporary campuses to permanent campuses. But the latest information is 90% universities in the capital city have failed to fulfill the conditions. As such they have been given time limit up to September 30, 2010 to shift campuses from residential areas to permanent campuses as per rule.
The private university campuses are located in Dhanmondi, Gulshan and Banani residential areas. There are other educational institutes like schools, colleges, hospitals linked with college etc. that have made lives of people in the areas miserable. For educational institutes, peaceful congenial atmosphere is very important. Considering all the factors, it is advisable that government should take necessary steps to make the areas live-able. Harmful situations in residential areas should no longer be encouraged to exist. There should be an end of it and this is the high time to take right decision to save stakeholders including public from the unwanted hazards.
But the pertinent question is where the universities will go in this short span of time and what will happen to the students, faculties and staff? It is undoubtedly critical problem for the government, university authorities, students, teachers, office staff and the guardians. What is the best solution? Technology is the best solution and technology is the most effective tool for solving problems of any magnitude. But to remember; technology cannot work itself, some one needs to command it.
The Universities all over the world are facing a great deal of change and quite some pressure to review and adapt their services to meet the needs of a changing world. The UNESCO 2009 World Conference on Higher Education expressed the need for the universities to widen access to their services and adopt more innovative approaches.
Without any doubt, the Internet, Open source software and Open Educational Resources (OER) are stimulating reforms of European Higher Education. Policymakers, researchers in education, international organizations and higher education institutions agree that ICT have the potential to stimulate international collaboration and to open the borders of the university. Throughout the last decade, numerous initiatives have been taken to experiment with establishment of ICT-enhanced activities, under various frame works and to varying degrees of success.
Virtual Campus can be one of the best solutions for the private universities in Bangladesh. It is an inspiring, hopeful and complex initiative. There are the diversity of cultural understanding around specific topic of virtual campuses, creativity and range of applications of technology in education, complex and changing landscape, and positive spirit of knowledge sharing.
The concept of Virtual Campus is not very old, dating from 1995. The European Policymakers started to stimulate the analysis of the potential of ICT to enhance learning in higher education. The strategic reports of the European Commission state that “new technologies” are of strategic value to build a “university of the future”. The virtual campus concept is referred to as “a specific format of distance education and on-line learning in which students, teaching staff and university administrative and technical staff mainly meet or communicate through technical links.
In Canada, Athabasca University has created the Canadian Virtual University, a consortium of 11 universities. The California Virtual University (CVU) launched in 1997 with 700 courses. Even in the less developed countries like Kenya, the policymakers have started to experiment with the set up of virtual campuses and universities. One prominent example is African Virtual University (AVU), initially launched in Washington in 1997, later transferred to Nairobi, Kenya in 2002. We now observe many universities offering courses themselves on a virtual campus basis. The term virtual campus is used to describe international cooperation among universities in many places. The number of the virtual campuses is increasing day by day all over Europe, America, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and Australia.
The Re-ViCa (Reviewing European Virtual Campus) has been set up in Belgium to redefine “Virtual Campus”. The project makes an inventory and systematically reviews cross-institutional virtual campuses of past decade, currently operational virtual campuses and impact of those initiatives that have closed down or become dormant. Re-Vica will make a review of Virtual Campuses and disseminate its results in Europe. By promoting the best cases of virtual campuses and by comparing the European and Non-European initiatives, guidelines and critical success factors are created that enable European virtual campuses interested to setting up a Virtual Campus to maximize their performances. To ensure success of the depth case studies, special care has been taken in selection of the partnership with respect to virtual campus management experience and a vast range of useful contacts with the international experts.
International Advisory Committee consists of 20 European and Non-European experts in the field of Virtual Campuses, each carefully selected on the basis of their experience. The committee members are invited to comment on the findings of the Re-Vica research during several Key Meetings. The first Key Meeting held on June 11, 2008 in Lisbon, Portugal and the second meeting in December 2008 in Berlin, Germany. The third Key Meeting was held on 8th June 2009 in the MECC, Maastricht, the Netherlands where the author was awarded M-2009 Fellowship and Honor of International Advisory Committee Membership from Asia region by UNESCO/ICDE and Re-ViCa Secretariat respectively.
Higher education area is a very complex world. Keeping the information in mind, the concerned authorities of the private varsities in Bangladesh are requested to think over the matter of shifting campus very seriously. The concept of setting up virtual campus jointly or separately can be one of the best solutions at the present situation under auspices of the Re-Vica Secretariat in Belgium.
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