DUCSU's evaluation initiative questioned, teachers outraged

Dhaka University teachers have expressed widespread outrage over a website created by the Dhaka University Central Students' Union (DUCSU) to evaluate teachers. Most teachers believe this initiative should have been undertaken by the university, not DUCSU.

On September 10, DUCSU formally launched the website named 'DU Evaluation', just four days before its designated one-year term was set to expire. By Sunday afternoon, 6,489 students had evaluated their teachers. Ratings of individual teachers spread from the website to social media, subjecting many teachers to ridicule and derogatory remarks. Facing criticism, DUCSU disabled public access to individual ratings the next day, but by then the scores had spread widely.

Professor Tariq Manzur of the Bangla Department told the media that teacher evaluation needs to be done formally and carefully. "Some aspects of this must be kept confidential, otherwise distance may be created in student-teacher relations," he said.

Many teachers said the initiative overstepped DUCSU's jurisdiction and was unacceptable, and that failing to keep the scores confidential was even more unacceptable. Teachers also raised questions over who was evaluating whom, objecting that students who did not attend classes regularly, or who had not taken a teacher's course at all, were being allowed to evaluate.

DUCSU executive member Umme Usratun Rafia, who was active in launching the website, said the initiative was taken in response to students' demands and that she had approached the university administration repeatedly over a year without receiving adequate support. She said the website would continue despite the administration's objections.

DUCSU General Secretary SM Farhad said, "No evaluation on the website is final. We announced earlier that it is still in the development and trial phase." He said they were compelled to take the initiative and would shut it down if the university introduced its own evaluation system.

Shehrin Amin Bhuiyan Monami, an assistant professor of the Public Administration Department and one of those trolled, wrote in a Facebook post that she had no objection to evaluation. However, she questioned what guarantee there was that students would evaluate neutrally in a politically influenced environment, and how representative the evaluation was given that many students did not participate. She nonetheless welcomed the initiative while criticising the hasty launch of the website without proper preparation.

Teacher and researcher Asif Bin Ali described the initiative as political "stuntbazi". In his view, student leaders were asserting their power through it, and evaluation for improvement should be carried out through a proper process while protecting professional confidentiality.

Dhaka University Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Administration) Professor Mohammad Almozadded Alfesani said, "We are in favour of teacher evaluation, but DUCSU will not do that work. It is not within DUCSU's jurisdiction." He said the university would introduce its own student evaluation system from the 2026-27 academic year. He also said the DUCSU initiative had caused widespread reaction among teachers, and that it had created a huge opportunity for teachers to be socially humiliated.

DUCSU said it will prepare a report on teachers of all departments based on three months of evaluations and feedback, and submit it to the university administration.