Dhaka: Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid on Thursday told Parliament that the country’s private universities have no authority to award PhD degrees, reports UNB.

‘No private university of the country has the right to award PhD degree,’ he said replying to a supplementary question from treasury bench MP Abdul Matin Khasru (Comilla-5).

Khasru wanted to know whether any step will be taken to stop awarding fake Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) degrees by private universities ‘in exchange of money’.

Nahid said fake PhD degrees are available not only in Bangladesh, but also in the developed countries, including the European countries and the USA.

Sounding a note of warning, Nahid said the private universities that do not abide by laws will not be allowed to enroll students from the next academic year.

In reply to a supplementary question from Opposition Leader Raushan Ershad, the Education Minister said, ‘Calling Dhaka University as the Oxford of the East is a myth as there is no evidence behind the claim. It’s a popular myth.’

Posing a question to the minister, Raushan claimed that the standard of education in the Dhaka University has declined as it is nowhere on the list of top 100 global universities.

Nahid said Dhaka University is the country’s largest and oldest university.’

‘I’ve been hearing for the last 50 years that the quality of education is on downtrend. After the publication of results (of public examinations), it is said the pass rate increases but the quality falls. If so, what would be our situation today? This claim is not true.’

The minister, however, admitted that Bangladesh is yet to achieve the world-class standard in education, but the quality is not falling.

He said it will be unjust to compare a 100-year old Dhaka University with a 700-year-old university in case of standard. ‘We cannot achieve quality education overnight. Though we couldn’t achieve the expected quality education, it is improving and it has to be improved.’