In Bangladesh, teaching at a public university is often described as a noble calling, an act of service rather than a profession driven by financial gain. While this ideal sounds admirable, it has quietly become a justification for ignoring a serious structural problem. The insufficient and outdated grade scale for faculty members in public universities. The cost of this neglect is not abstract. It is deeply personal for teachers and profoundly damaging for the nation’s higher education system.
It is frequently argued that education is more than money, and therefore faculty members should not prioritise financial benefits! This argument oversimplifies a complex reality. Teaching is indeed a vocation rooted in commitment, ethics, and public service, but it is also a profession that demands years of academic training, research output, and intellectual labour. Passion alone cannot substitute recognition, dignity, and fair compensation.
A faculty member in a public university typically spends more than a decade in formal education, earning undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, often followed by a PhD or postdoctoral research. These years involve financial sacrifice, delayed stability, and intense academic pressure. Yet, once appointed, many senior faculty members including associate professors find themselves placed on a grade scale that does not reflect their qualifications, workload, or societal responsibility. When compared with other public service cadres or even non-academic professionals with similar education levels, university teachers are often left behind.
The consequences of this inadequate grading system are far-reaching. First, it demoralises young academics. Talented graduates who might otherwise pursue teaching and research increasingly choose private sector jobs, development organisations, or opportunities abroad. It is influencing the brain-drain highly each year. This growing brain drain weakens public universities from within, leaving them understaffed.
Second, poor financial recognition directly affects research culture, which is already fragile in Bangladesh. Public universities are expected to produce knowledge, yet they are rarely prioritised as research institutions. The country still lacks globally recognised R1 universities, institutions where high-impact research is central to academic life. This absence is not due to a lack of intellectual capacity, but to structural neglect. Faculty members struggling with low pay, heavy teaching loads, and limited research funding cannot realistically compete in international research landscapes.
Moreover, the current system sends a troubling message, that academic excellence and long-term intellectual contribution are less valuable than administrative or bureaucratic roles. When promotion and grading fail to adequately reward research output, innovation, and global academic engagement becomes institutionalised. Universities then risk becoming degree-granting bodies rather than centres of critical inquiry and knowledge creation. Therefore, all these situations are not only for ‘Earning more money’.
Reforming the faculty grade scale is therefore not merely a financial issue, it is a policy imperative. Competitive compensation, coupled with incentives for research and academic excellence, would help restore confidence in public universities. It would encourage young scholars to stay and contribute meaningfully to national development.
Bangladesh aspires to become a knowledge-based economy. This aspiration cannot be fulfilled if the very people responsible for producing knowledge are undervalued. Investing in faculty members is not a luxury; it is a long-term national investment. Until we recognise this, public universities will continue to struggle, and the cost will be borne not just by teachers, but by future generations of students and scholars.
The writer is an Assistant Professor, Mass Communication and Journalism Department, Bangladesh University of Professionals
