University for children of bureaucrats ‘Govt has no such plan’

Public Administration Minister Farhad Hossain yesterday said there were no discussions at the DC Conference-2024 regarding establishment of a separate university for the children of civil servants.

“The government has no such plan,” he told The Daily Star at the secretariat, adding that he was unaware of any proposal to set up such a university.

The issue — bureaucrats asking for a separate university for their children’s education — has sparked discussion and criticism on social media platforms in the last few days.

The proposal for such an institution is not new; civil servants had proposed establishing such a specialised university exclusively for their own higher degrees and training during the 2019 DC conference.

According to officials from Ministry of Public Administration, the government is not actively thinking about the establishment of a specialised university for civil servants.

Citing the capital’s Government Employees’ Hospital as an example, the minister said despite its name, people of all classes and professions can receive treatment there.

If there were to be a specialised university, it would not exclusively be for certain people, as the concept of a university is universal, he said.

He also cited institutions like Bangladesh University of Professionals and Military Institute of Science and Technology as examples.

The government always places importance on the education and training of bureaucrats, for which, Bangladesh Public Administration Training Center in Savar has undertaken an initiative to construct a building with accommodation facilities for 1,000 officials, said the minister.

Several officials from public administration ministry, cabinet division, and field administration, speaking anonymously to The Daily Star, expressed concerns about criticism on social media regarding such proposals from administrative cadre officers, which they claim don’t occur in the case of police or other forces.