Plagiarism is nothing but cheating. But when the gatekeepers of academic integrity indulge in such an unethical practice, some universities choose to turn a blind eye. At least this holds true for the country’s most prestigious Dhaka University.
While the university has found evidence of plagiarism against 11 of its teachers in the past four years, it has been slow to upbraid or punish offenders — so far, punitive action has been taken against three of them only. Offenders, on the other hand, have blamed someone else for the mistakes.
The teachers who have faced the wrath of the university authorities for plagiarism are Md Omar Faruq of the Islamic history and culture department, Sayed Mahfuzul Haque Marzan of the criminology department, and Samia Rahman of the mass communication and journalism department.
In 2018, then assistant professor Omar’s PhD degree was cancelled on charges of plagiarism. In October 2020, the university formed a special tribunal to determine his punishment. Later, on its recommendation, the DU Syndicate — the governing body –asked the teacher to serve as a lecturer.
On similar grounds, associate professor Samia and assistant professor Marzan were redesignated as assistant professor and lecturer, respectively, in 2020. The action came three years after a panel was formed to probe allegations of plagiarism against the duo for an article they had co-authored.
In fact, in 2017, the University of Chicago Press wrote to DU, claiming that Samia and Marjan had, in their co-authored write-up, “used portions without proper citations” from French philosopher Michel Foucault’s 1982 article ‘The Subject and Power’. The duo’s article was published in DU’s Social Science Review in 2016.
When asked about the accusations, Marjan, in 2017, said that Samia was the first author of their joint article and “if there were any problems, they were in her portion of the work.” Samia, on her part, had said: “I was abroad when the article was published. He submitted it without consulting me.”
However, no meaningful action has been taken in other cases of plagiarism.
In September 2017, for instance, the DU syndicate formed a five-member panel, led by then pro vice chancellor (academic) Nasreen Ahmed, to probe allegations of plagiarism against tourism and hospitality management department’s three assistant professors — Bodruzzaman Bhuiyan, Nusrat Jahan and her husband Ruhul Amin.
This was after the teachers of the department indulged in mudslinging. Nusrat, a Senate member, was the one who had first complained to the authorities, including the VC, accusing Bodruzzaman of using copied materials in his thesis, titled ‘Socio-economic Impact of Tourism in Cox’s Bazar: A Study of Local Residence Attitude’.
Prof Md Afzal Hossain of the department was quick to raise similar allegations against Nusrat and her husband Rahul — the husband-wife duo, according to him, used portions from each other’s previous works in their academic articles.
Ruhul, however, refuted the allegations against him and his wife as baseless. “All our published articles are properly cited and referenced to the primary and secondary sources. The allegations are baseless.”
Four years have already passed, but the university probe committee is yet to submit its findings.
Similarly, in January 2020, a professor of Sweden’s Gothenburg University and a Bangladeshi private university researcher separately raised allegations of plagiarism against pharmaceutical technology department’s associate professor AK Lutful Kabir. Both then claimed to found some 98 percent plagiarism in Lutful’s PhD thesis.
Prof Jonas Nilsson of Sweden wrote a letter to the DU VC, alleging that Lutful had copied from his research paper. The department’s dean of faculty was asked to investigate the matter. However, there is no progress in the matter yet.
Two months later, in March 2020, the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh cancelled a research contract with two DU teachers after they found evidence of plagiarism in their joint academic paper.
The two researchers — Dr Eshani Chakraborty, professor of the history department, and Dr Zobaida Nasreen, associate professor of the anthropology department — received the society’s research grant nearly four years ago.
They were selected to carry out a research on ‘Brihottoro Dhakar Sthanik Sangskriti o Boishister Swarup Anusondhan (Exploring local culture and its distinctive features of greater Dhaka)’ in April 2017.
The Asiatic Society subsequently wrote to the DU authorities, urging them to initiate action against the two teachers, but the varsity apparently chose to stay silent.
Recently, former director of the National Academy for Education Management Iffat Ara Nargis brought plagiarism allegations against DU music department associate professor Mohsina Akhter Khanam (known as Leena Taposhi Khan) at a conference.
Nargis alleged that in her 280-page book, Leena copied materials from other books — “some 80 pages are direct lifts”.
Leena completed her PhD in 2010 on the ‘Use of ragas in Nazrul songs’ under the supervision of Nazrul exponent former national professor Rafiqul Islam. “The thesis under my supervision was completed following the assigned procedure using proper references,” Prof Rafiqul said.
Besides, a few teachers from the country’s public varsities recently raised plagiarism allegations against social science faculty dean professor Sadeka Halim. They pointed out the overlaps between the DU professor’s research paper, ‘Participation of Women in Aquaculture in the Three Coastal Districts of Bangladesh: Approaches towards Sustainable Livelihood’, and other materials.
When contacted, DU pro vice-chancellor professor ASM Maksud Kamal said, ‘These complaints usually come to me through a process. I have been looking into plagiarism complaints since taking charge. Officials concerned have been asked to submit a report at the earliest. Hopefully, a decision in these cases are expected by this month.”
Bangladesh has some 49 public and 107 private universities. However, not a single varsity has formulated an anti-plagiarism policy to date.
“We will soon unveil an anti-plagiarism guideline for researchers, teachers and students of the university aiming to prevent such an unethical practice in their research work. We are waiting for an approval from the Syndicate,” Prof Maksud Kamal said.
Source: United News of Bangladesh