National University Marks 34th Founding Anniversary, With Nearly 4 Million Students Under Its Umbrella

The 34th founding anniversary of the National University, the largest institution of higher education in the country, is being observed today, Wednesday (October 21). To mark the day, banners have been put up at the university's main campus and city office buildings, a special supplement has been published, and prayers have been arranged at the central mosque.

The programmes were announced in a press release issued by the university on Tuesday (October 20), which also recalled the institution's history and presented its current figures.

According to the release, the National University was established after Act No. 37 was passed in the Jatiya Sangsad on October 20, 1992, followed by a gazette notification the next day. The university authorities described the establishment as a landmark event in the history of higher education in Bangladesh.

The release said the university was founded under the leadership of then prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia with the aims of expanding higher education opportunities for ordinary people, reducing pressure on the existing universities, and ensuring coordinated management of college education at district and upazila levels.

Since its founding, the institution has played a unique role in creating higher education opportunities for young people from remote areas of the country, particularly from middle-income, lower-middle-income and marginalised families, the release noted. The chance to earn a degree at a local college has carried higher education to millions of families.

At present, nearly 4 million students are studying at 2,318 affiliated colleges and institutions under the National University, where more than 100,000 teachers are employed.

The scale is enormous: roughly 70 percent of all higher education in the country is conducted under this university. In other words, about seven out of every ten higher education students in Bangladesh are connected to the National University in one way or another.

The institution has so far produced more than 10 million graduates. According to the release, these graduates are making important contributions at home and abroad in education, administration, business and commerce, technology and social development.

The anniversary also comes with familiar challenges. Session backlog has long been a known problem, and the pressure to update curricula in step with the times keeps growing.

The release added that the National University is working tirelessly to modernise its curricula, expand teacher training programmes, eliminate session backlog and widen research opportunities, in order to keep pace with a changing world and meet the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

More than three decades on, the institution is no longer just a degree-awarding body — it is the centre of the country's largest education system. Alongside the anniversary programmes, attention now rests on the plans this vast institution sets out for the days ahead.