Student intimidation, no pay and hunger strikes: the challenges facing Heads of Department in Bangladesh colleges

Abstract

The role of the Head of Department is at the heart of tertiary education; it is where institutional policy and procedure is predominately enacted. The extant literature on the nature and challenges of such roles is almost exclusively from the Western world. The research that this article reports on examined the leadership and management structures and staff progression routes in Bangladesh colleges. The project then explored the roles and challenges facing Heads of Department in the colleges. Four focus groups were held comprising of a total of 26 Heads of Department from Bangladesh colleges. Findings indicate that the Bangladesh higher education system is highly centralised, from the Ministry of Education and the National University. Participants report their role as primarily paper-based administration with little autonomy. The challenges they face involve dealing with acute staffing shortages, student political activists and no preparation and development in the form of training. These roles and challenges differ from roles in higher education in the literature.

Towards inclusivity and sustainability in the leadership of an academic department in a South African university: A distributed perspective

“…The departmental practice of election of the HOD by peers resulted in none of the top three nominated candidates being willing to take up the position (FGI 3). This aligned with the literature that acknowledges that the HOD position is not sought after, given its complexity, and that it interferes with the scholarly work of an academic (Gibson, 2020;Gmelch, 2020). To illustrate, Participant 8 explained that there have been crises of leadership or management in the department going back over decades, in which it was really difficult to find people who would volunteer, who would accept a nomination.…”

“…Against this backdrop, it stands to reason that role ambiguity (Chilvers et al, 2018;Nguyen, 2013) may be experienced by HODs as they attempt to hold in balance the academic project and the administration of the department. This balance is tenuous at best, and it is, most often, the academic project-the teaching and research-that is known to suffer (Gibson, 2020;Gmelch, 2000). Frustration, fatigue, stress, and burn out may be experienced by HODs as they try desperately to hold onto their academic work (Sarros et al, 1997)-the very reason they entered the academy (Chilvers et al, 2018).…”

The Relationship between Figureheads and Managerial Leaders in the Private University Sector: A Decentralised, Competency-Based Leadership Model for Sustainable Higher Education

“…The growing popularity of and demand for education motivated politicians and bureaucrats to establish education institutions that grew under the aegis of public policy [14]. To promote political ideology or activities, politicians and bureaucrats began dominating the governing bodies of institutions [15]. This shattered the once-strong bond between the "figurehead" and the managerial leadership [16].…”

“…Without highlighting the generic facts and figures which are available in earlier studies [15,31], we describe-with reference to Bangladesh-the rise of the private university sector, its ownership pattern, and its governance procedures.…”