Academics of public administration discipline expressed their concerns over the implementation and sustainability of the state reform procedures without citizens’ behavioural change.
Addressing a seminar on reform of public administration, hosted by the Department of Public Administration at Dhaka University, they said that the structural reforms should have been followed by a post-uprising cultural reform in Bangladesh.
‘Amid huge talks about reform, there is no discussion on which economic approach Bangladesh should follow now and which values should be incorporated in the state operating system for an ‘anti-discriminatory’ society. I am worried,’ said Professor Aka Firowz Ahmad, member of the public administration reform commission.
Firowz, also chairman of the department of public administration at Stamford University Bangladesh, added that he expected a reform commission on education system also.
The discussion began with a keynote presentation by Professor Ferdous Arfina Osman. She recommended several steps, including behavioural change of the civil service officials, for a pro-citizen public administration.
Discussing the keynotes, Professor Syeda Lasna Kabir emphasised the implementation of the reform proposals for a fascism-free future of Bangladesh.
Student representative Shakibul Bashar demanded that the civil service officials must leave elitism while attending the service seekers.
‘The post-uprising Bangladesh needs a citizen-empowered bureaucracy,’ said Mehedi, another student representative.
Professor Naznin Islam, chairman of the DU public administration department, presided over the programme.
The seminar was also addressed by Jalal Ahmed, chairman at Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission, public administration faculty member Professor Musleh Uddin Ahmed, research associate at the Institute of Development Policy under University of Antwerp Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, Dhaka University proctor and associate professor Saifuddin Ahmed, among others.
