We Didn’t Build Labs, We Built Dorms

Dr. Mashiur Rahman

On one hand, a young student sits in a Canadian university laboratory, working on ways to improve the efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, since within the next decade and a half, developed countries want to reduce their use of petrol and diesel cars. On the other hand, in a NASA research center in the United States, another student observes the artificial intelligence and navigation systems of robots sent to distant planets—robots that now send massive amounts of information about Martian soil, atmosphere, and light back to Earth every day. In a Russian university, students are building service robots that, in the future, will lessen human dependence in hospitals, call centers, and domestic services. At Tehran University, a student is attempting to discover new medicines using human cells, even though it takes on average ten to fifteen years and hundreds of millions of dollars to bring a new effective medicine to market. Students at the University of Tokyo are using virtual reality and artificial intelligence to build theme parks, showing how the entertainment industry too can become a research laboratory. In Munich, Germany, university students are working on the software and sensor systems of driverless cars, where the vehicles make their own decisions by analyzing thousands of data points every second.

Meanwhile, a large portion of Bangladeshi students live in inhumane dorm rooms where survival, rather than studying, becomes the main challenge. There, dreams of research do not take root—only the urgent desire to fill out job applications. This is where the distance is born. Not in merit, but in the system.

International statistics show that the United States spends nearly three percent of its total economy on research and development, Germany and Japan invest at roughly the same rate, and China has already reached the ranks of the top global spenders by allocating several hundred billion dollars annually to research. Bangladesh stands here with an investment of around zero point four percent. In other words, we still have not accepted research as a mainstream priority. Yet, the country that spends on research owns the technology of the next decade, while the one that doesn’t, remains only a user.

Every year, about fifty thousand Bangladeshi students go abroad for higher studies. This number has nearly doubled in the last decade. A large portion of them never return after finishing their education. The labs, the technology, the research support they find abroad simply do not exist here even in shadow. The result is a brain drain, where a country’s strongest investment—its people—slowly leave for elsewhere.

Student numbers are rapidly increasing in our universities, but the number of researchers is not growing at the same rate. In many public universities, the student-to-teacher ratio is still over thirty-five to one. In the developed world, this ratio averages between fifteen and twenty. There, a teacher can personally guide a student along the path of research; here, teachers themselves are weighed down by exam papers and administrative pressure.

A low research budget doesn’t just mean a lack of equipment, but a lack of mindset. Most of our undergraduate and postgraduate students see research as a waste of time, because the system does not grant any financial, social, or professional recognition to research. Job exams do not give points for research, bank forms have no field for publications. As a result, young people do not ask, “What new thing can I discover?” They ask, “How can I get a job quickly?”

In countries that emphasize research, universities have direct relationships with industry. In Germany, universities and the automotive sector work together. In the United States, Silicon Valley was born out of university laboratories. In Japan, corporations run their own labs jointly with universities. In Bangladesh, universities and industries live on two separate planets.

We love to blame our students—saying they are lazy or lack initiative. But initiative is born from environment, not from emptiness. When a student sees that their research will be of no use, they stop dreaming altogether. And when a society forgets how to dream, its future gets written by others.

To come out of this crisis, we must first acknowledge that development is not just about roads, bridges, or tall buildings. Development means having an education system where students graduate by discovering things, not just memorizing them. Development means a state that is not afraid of questions.

If we truly want our students to work in NASA’s labs, to build fuel cells, to discover cures for cancer, then we must first create opportunities for research. We need to build labs, prepare teachers, invest money, and, most importantly, respect research.

Otherwise, this gap will only widen. As the world draws the blueprint for a new civilization with artificial intelligence, we will sit in crowded dorms, dreaming only of jobs. One day, we will be left to wonder, shocked, where exactly we fell behind.