Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) celebrate its 60th year of engineering education in Bangladesh today. Ranking 22nd in South Asia, the list of achievements of BUET is countless. Over the last six decades, it has undoubtedly given not only the country, but also the world, some of the most talented engineers and architects.In the spirit of all the successes and failures of BUET, starting from today, they are observing a four-day long event to commemorate their long journey.
‘It is for the public to decide what we have done and how much we were able to achieve. We have tried to make students who are capable of contributing to the development of the country,’ Professor A M M Safiullah, the vice-chancellor of BUET.
‘Our goal is to make competent students who can be leaders in the technical areas, and who will think about the country and do something for the people. Our achievement is vast but our scopes are very limited. We are not celebrating our 60 years of engineering education. Celebration is a very light word to describe what we doing here. This event is a reflection for us. To try and understand why we are not getting the opportunities,’ he expresses.
Safiullah says that BUET does a lot of work but few people end up realising the extent of good work done by BUET. ‘We work for the people, but there is no realisation among the people. We engineers are too consumed in our work and research to do something about that.’
‘There should be ways for engineers to communicate with the people so that they can explain what the challenges are and what they are set out to do in simple terms for the general people to understand,’ adds the vice-chancellor.
BUET has a long and illustrious history, a journey which tells the tale of how a small rented house school transformed itself into the premier university of the country. ‘It is quiet astonishing how big this institution has turned out to be,’ reflects Imamuddin Ahmed Choudhury, an alumni of BUET and the first batch to graduate from this institution.
The record of this institution can be traced back to as early as 1876 when the British Raj had established one Dacca Survey School in Nalgola. Under the British colonial rule, the institution started fulfilling its duty of making land surveyors out of people, through two years of courses in a rented house. ‘The building was situated near the present day Salimullah Medical College,’ informs Imamuddin.
‘The school gained popularity and in 1897 the status of the school was raised and it became the Dhaka School of Engineering. The number of students was 400 at the time.
The school started to offer three year sub-overseer course,’ says an officer-in-charge of the event.
‘At that time the Nawab family of Dhaka took keen interest in the advancement of the Muslims and in 1902, Nawab Sir Salimullah donated 112,000 rupee as per the wish of his father, for the development of the school,’ adds the officer.
In 1905, a new curriculum was introduced. It was called the overseer course in civil engineering for the duration of four years. The next year, the school was moved from Nalgola to a specially chosen building near the present day Shahidullah Hall in the Dhaka University campus.
‘Those who are old enough would remember a Chimney near the hall which stood tall till late 1970s. That was the last symbol of the Dacca School of Engineering at that campus,’ remembers Imamuddin.
In the year of 1908, the name of Dhaka School of Engineering was changed to Ahsanullah School of Engineering as a tribute to the contribution made by the Nawab Family. In the same year, the engineering school was affiliated by the Overseers Examination Board of Bengal. Under the board, the study programs were modified, and the sub overseer course was reduced to a course of two years, and in the meantime, one year practical training course, for the overseer program was added. And subsequently, in 1913, a diploma course in electrical and mechanical engineering commenced. However the diploma courses were brought to an end in 1919. In the year 1920, Ahsanullah School of Engineering was again moved to a capacious building, which was originally built for the press of the then East Bengal.
In the mid 1940s, the then Government of Bengal felt the necessity for graduate engineers, after the historic division of Bengal. A committee was soon formed in May 1947, and they had decided to convert Ahsanullah School of Engineering into a College. And the college was affiliated with Dhaka University and formed the faculty of engineering.
The engineering college started its journey with Hakim Ali as the first principal. In the year 1958, the Metallurgical Engineering Program was introduced while the Department of Agricultural and Textile Engineering was closed. ‘In 1954, with the financial support from International Co-operation Agency (presently USAID), Ahsanullah School of Engineering started a very successful co-operative program with Texas A&M college,’ says Imamuddin. ‘This relationship assisted Ahsanullah School of Engineering to develop curricula, improve the teaching quality and physical infrastructure. The relationship continued for more than 20 years,’ Imamuddin continues.
‘In 1958, according to the Syndicate decision of Dhaka University of 1956 the diploma classes were held for the last time,’ says Imamuddin. In 1962, under the autocratic administration of Pakistan, Ahsanullah Engineering College was made into the East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology (EPUET).
Afterwards, two faculties were introduced, one was the faculty of engineering and the other was the faculty of architecture. Under these faculties, very new and exciting subjects were offered to students wishing to acquire knowledge in those fields. Under the faculty of engineering, there were Civil engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Material and Metallurgical Engineering, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. And under the faculty of architecture, there were Architecture and Humanities.
As the then East Pakistan reemerged as an independent nation, EPUET was renamed and given the name of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Like every other educational institutes of Dhaka, the students of EPUET actively participated in the political development. After March 25 1971, the students, teachers and staffs of BUET fought with arms to liberate the country.
‘20 of the heroes never returned. On this occasion, we proudly remember their names,’ says Professor Shahidul Islam Khan, the director of Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department of BUET. From there on, BUET started a whole new journey of development and expansion. In 1972, a new program in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering was introduced to meet the necessity of naval architects and marine engineers in a riverine country. And in 1973, the first convocation of BUET was held with Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the chief guest.
Today, BUET consists of five faculties, 16 departments, three institutes, six research centers, 545 students and more than 8500 students.
‘In my personal opinion, the strength and the backbone of this university are the faculty members. It is the teachers that make this institution, but more importantly, they create brilliant engineers,’ the vice-chancellor of BUET, proudly reflects. ‘Most of the engineers working in Bangladesh are BUET graduates. Although there are other engineering institutions, but BUET is the leading contributor in educating engineering students.’
He goes on to elaborate on the situation, ‘I will not say that we have achieved success in all the areas, one of the big problems we face is the fact that a lot of our brilliant and talented students leave Bangladesh in search of better opportunities. Say I teach a student something and he does not have the opportunity to apply his or her knowledge and talent, that student will be very frustrated. Our students face a lot of restrictions as far getting the right kind of job where they can express their brilliance. If someone gets a job in a bank, the salary is very high, compared to the salary structure of engineers on average. But a banker does not require talent or specialised skills that an engineer does.’
‘But the biggest problem with BUET is that we stress too much on the undergraduate programs’, admits Professor Shahidul. ‘If we can stress a lot more on the PhD programs and research programs, students will be able to deal with our national issues’, he argues.
‘We are a public university, we are bound to have shortcomings,’ says Professor Mazharul Hoque, of the Faculty of Civil Engineering. ‘We have limited funding, laboratories are not being expanded, and we are not being able to bring in new equipments and not a lot of research facilities. If we cannot strengthen our resources and technically develop in the face of globalisation, we may not be able to survive.’
With a long and glorious history of BUET, it also has a long list of alumni. Many of them have found great success and some of them achieved recognition from the world. The name of the late Fazlur Rahman Khan is always the first name to be uttered by people when talking about high rise buildings.
‘Around three lakh students graduate high school, from there only 3000 students are eligible to take the admission test in BUET, and from there we select a little over 800 students. That is why I say we have the cream of the crop,’ concludes Professor Safiullah.
As BUET steps into its 60th year, they are busy developing themselves further and expand their horizon. They have plans of increasing post graduate studies and researches, and they are putting a lot of effort in cutting edge technologies like robotics, nano-engineering and multi-disciplinary subjects like bio-medical engineering, accident research, housing for poor and much more.
