When Teachers Become Political Actors, Who Teaches the Students?

Many people have become frustrated by the role played by Bangladesh’s university teachers over the five decades since independence. This is not merely an academic matter; it goes to the heart of what we expect from our universities and those entrusted with educating future generations. A significant number of university teachers are directly involved in partisan politics and, in some cases, act as advisers and political mentors to student groups affiliated with their parties. Such extensive political involvement by academics is unusual internationally and raises a fundamental question: when teachers devote substantial time and energy to partisan activities, who takes responsibility for teaching, research, innovation and the intellectual development of students?

The question is more urgent today. We live in a world of uncertainty where future jobs are difficult to predict, skills are changing rapidly and economies are becoming increasingly technology-driven. Should university teachers not be at the forefront of preparing young people for this competitive world? Should they continue to prioritise partisan politics, or return their primary attention to teaching, research, innovation and mentoring?

The experience of other Asian countries offers important lessons. South Korea, once a poor agrarian country in the 1960s, has become a global economic and technological power through sustained investment in education, research, industrial development and exports. Exports now account for about 44 per cent of its GDP. Vietnam, through long-term industrial policies, administrative efficiency and an increasingly modern education system, has also become a major export-oriented manufacturing economy. Its exports exceeded US$475 billion in 2025, driven substantially by electronics and technology.

The lesson for Bangladesh is clear: economic transformation requires more than infrastructure and investment. It requires universities capable of producing knowledge, skills, innovation and critical thinking. University teachers therefore have a responsibility that extends beyond the classroom, but that responsibility is fundamentally academic and intellectual.

Universities have never been, and should never become, places devoid of politics. They are places where political ideas are debated, public policies questioned and social assumptions examined. University teachers, as citizens, have every right to hold political beliefs and express their views. The real question is different: should teachers become active partisan political actors within universities, organise students along party lines, or seek academic and administrative positions through political connections?

The history of Bangladesh demonstrates the important role university teachers and students can play during a national crisis. The University of Dhaka was a centre of resistance during the Language Movement and the political struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. Teachers contributed intellectually to the demand for autonomy, while many teachers and students became victims of repression or participated directly in the Liberation War.

This was political engagement of a fundamentally different nature. The issue was not which party would control a university, who would become vice-chancellor or which faction would receive administrative privileges. Teachers and students were responding to a historic struggle for political rights, democracy and national self-determination.

After independence, however, Bangladesh needed universities to produce knowledge, educate a new generation and develop the intellectual and technological capabilities required for nation-building. Unfortunately, partisan politics gradually became embedded in university life. Political affiliation can influence relationships among teachers and, at times, appointments to positions of authority. The problem is not confined to one party; successive governments have been accused of favouring academics associated with their political camp.

International experience offers an important lesson: academic freedom does not require political neutrality in private life, but it does require a separation between scholarship and partisan power. In the USA and the UK, academics are free to participate in political life and express controversial views. Yet universities generally seek to protect teaching and research from partisan control. India, where universities have long been important arenas of political debate and student activism, also demonstrates the danger of allowing campuses to become extensions of competing political organisations. Singapore provides a contrasting model, where universities have achieved remarkable international standing but academic freedom is more constrained and concerns about political sensitivity and self-censorship have been documented. Japan, meanwhile, places strong emphasis on academic professionalism and scholarly independence. The systems differ, but the central lesson is similar: strong universities require a protected sphere in which teaching, research, recruitment and academic promotion are not determined by partisan loyalty.

To ensure such an environment, the responsibility does not however rest entirely with teachers. Political parties must also ask why they need professors as political organisers within universities. Why should political loyalty matter in selecting a vice-chancellor? Why should teachers’ organisations be divided along party lines? A vice-chancellor should be selected for academic distinction, leadership, integrity and commitment to institutional autonomy, not political affiliation. If every new government replaces one politically aligned group of academics with another, Bangladesh will merely reproduce the same system under different colours.

We do not need politically silent teachers but intellectually independent teachers. If a teacher assumes a formal political role requiring extensive partisan activity, a transparent mechanism, such as leave from university duties, could prevent conflicts between political and academic responsibilities. More importantly, universities need transparent, merit-based systems for recruiting teachers and appointing vice-chancellors, deans, heads of departments and other academic leaders. Here, academic merit, integrity and leadership should be the criteria. Teachers should also refrain from using their authority to recruit or influence students into partisan politics. Their responsibility is to expose students to competing ideas and encourage independent judgement.

The great teachers of the pre-independence period did not make Bangladesh’s universities important because they were party functionaries. They made them important because they were teachers, scholars and intellectuals who possessed the courage to speak when the country needed them. That is the tradition worth preserving. If Bangladesh wants its universities to produce an independent-minded, creative and responsible generation capable of competing in a rapidly changing world, university teachers must reclaim their central role as educators, scholars and intellectual leaders. Political conviction is a personal right; academic integrity is a professional responsibility.

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The writer is a Distinguished Professor, Eastern University, and former Vice Chancellor, East West University, Bangladesh