Glorious 50 years of BAU

Agricultural education and research

Nowsher Ahmed Nipun :

The Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) is the pioneer and premier university of its kind in the country. Its scholastic pursuit covers all the domains of Agricultural science having direct bearing on the terrestrial and aquatic productivity. Its mandatory obligation is to provide institutional leadership in order to ensure quality to teaching, research and outreach activities needed to accelerate agricultural development in Bangladesh.
The academic programmer of the university-seeks to achieve sustainable capacity of providing high quality agricultural education to excel in the development of agricultural technologies.
The University Campus, with an area of 445 hectare is located in scenic rural surroundings on the western bank old Brahmaputra river, 3 km south of the district town of Mymensingh. The Campus is made up of a series of academics, administrative and residential buildings and a number of experimental farms gardens and other related deciliters.
Bangladesh Agricultural University was established as the nation's only university of its kind with the first session being 1962-63 on the session being 1961-62 on the basis of recommendations made by the commission on Nation Education and the Agricultural Commission. The scheme for the establishment of BAU was finalized on the 8th June and its ordinance was promulgated on the 18th August, 1961.With the appointment of its fist Vice-Chancellor Prof. Dr. M. O. Ghani, the university formally come into existence on the 2nd September,1961.
The university started functioning in 1961 with only 23 teaching departments grouped under 2 Faculties, namely the Faculty of Veterinary Science and Faculty of Agriculture, having a total of 30 teachers and 444 students only. A third Faculty namely, the Faculty of Animal Husbandry was added a few month after the establishment of the university. The Faculty of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering & Technology and the Faculty of Fisheries started functioning with effect fron the session 1963-64, 1964-65, & 1967-68 respectively.
The university at its Bachelor degree level offers post HSC courses of 8-10 semesters duration under course-credit system leading to 7 (seven) Bachelor degrees of DVM, BScAg.(Hons), BSc.AH(Hons), BSc.Ag.Econ(Hon), BSc Agri.Engg,. BSc. Fisheries(Hons) and BSc Food Engg. The Committee for Advanced Studies & Research (CSAR) is responsible for development, coordination and supervision of postgraduate teaching and research leading to MS and PhD degrees respectively of 3-5 semester and 3 year duration in 44 disciplines degrees.
At present, only one affiliated college - Sheikh Fazilatun Nessa Muzib Fisheries College at Melandaha, Jamalpur - is attached to the Faculty of Fisheries of this University.
BAU provides its graduates a foundation for a lifetime of professional and personal development by combining academic excellence and professional relevance and hence, they are highly regarded by all employer organizations home and abroad. BAU has produced as many as 23,270 graduates with Bachelor degrees, 12,784 with Master degrees and 355 with Ph.D. degrees till December 2010.
At present the faculty strength of BAU stands at 533, of which 249 are Professors and the remaining 80, 155 and 49 are Associate Professors, Assistant Professors and Lecturers respectively. Majority of the faculty-members have had their specialized higher training leading to PhD degrees from national or foreign Universities. Now present enrolment of students in six faculties of the University stands at 3,288, 1,301 and 283 at bachelor, master and Ph.D. levels respectively with a total of 4,872. Female students constitute about 34 percent of the total enrolment.
BAU has thus become a center of excellence in higher agricultural education and research, and has succeeded in attracting the most talented scientists and educationist of the country as its faculty members. The University conducts two main streams of research, namely the degree research and the project research, the former being supervised by the teachers for postgraduate students at both MS & PhD levels while the problem solving research projects are conducted with sponsorship accorded either by the university or some external agencies. However, for proper co-ordination and management of research project, BAU Research System (BAURES) was established in 1984. Since its establishment, BAURES has successfully completed 889 research projects and has at present 71 ongoing projects.
The ongoing research projects also include quite a good number of projects which have been sponsored by different international development agencies like USDA, IAIA, ODA, NORAD, ISF, DFID, DANIDA etc.
The University through its research activities has succeeded in developing and releasing a number of important crop cultivates, techniques and technologies which have direct bearing on national agricultural growth. They include two HYV rice under the name of BAU-63, BAU-2, BAUKul, Apple Kul, two HYV mustard seed under the name of Sanpad and Sambal, 4 soybean cultivates name as Devis, Bragg, Dohag & G-2, two sweet potato cultivars named as Kamaka Sundari and Tripti, 3 Mukhi Kachu cultivars in the name of Latiraj, Bilashi & Dowlatpuri, techniques of producing rhizobiam biofertilizer, soil testing kit, techniques of controlling guava wilt, improved production technology of banana and pineapple, production of poultry vaccine, fish and shrimp culture in paddy field, development of fish feed, grafting of African Dhaibcha, perennial cultivation of vegetables, improved varieties of scavenging poultry, balanced poultry feed, artificial animal insemination, urea-molasses treated straw blocks as cattle feed, improved plough, seed drilling marching, BAU-ZIA fertilizer spray machine, solar dryer, deve

19 June, 2013 Wednesday

Glorious 50 years of BAU

Agricultural education and research