The Department of Development Studies was established in the year 2000 to provide challenging and innovative teaching in the field of development studies, a rapidly growing area of study concerned with the people, economy, and society. This area of study fosters high quality research on the problems of developing countries in general and Bangladesh in particular. Within a relatively short span of time, the department has grown fast and established itself as a unique institution of excellence with a degree of national and international repute. The department offers as many as 7 programs including the Undergraduate Program in Development Studies, Master of Development Studies (MDS), MDS for Bangladesh Bank Officials, MPhil, PhD and Certificate Program in Development Studies.
As a leading national think-tank, the department also organizes seminar, symposium and roundtable discussion on nationally significant issues regularly and renders intellectual input to ongoing development debate and policy issues. It regularly organizes specialized training programs for the government, business and NGO officials regularly. The department takes pride in hosting public lectures delivered by internationally renowned development entrepreneurs such as Mr. Kailash Satarthy, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Ms. Runa Khan, founder and Executive Director of Friendship and Mr. Kamal Kadir, CEO of BKash. In recent years, the Centre on Budget and Policy has excelled the department’s comparative advantage in research, training and policy advocacy. It has got a smart website of its own too. It publishes a bi-annual research journal titled the Dhaka University Journal of Development Studies. Faculty members and students have access to the good number selected world renowned journals through subscribed e-library membership.
The department is a home of a rich mixed pool of skilled and committed teaching staff- consisting of both nationally renowned professors as well as young high-quality academics with multidisciplinary academic background and research track record. Faculty members typically pursue an active career –busy in teaching, research projects, conferences and seminars at home and abroad, national and international publications. Many of the faculty members have practical work experience in industries and global corporations too.
The department possesses one of the best physical infrastructural facilities at the University of Dhaka including a modern seminar library which is a repository of some thousands of books in the realm of development studies in Bangladesh and to some extent abroad. Financial support to build these facilities has been generously provided by a host of private sector organizations. The department has established full-furnished air-conditioned classrooms and a resource center with computer and internet connectivity for students. It is one of the few departments at the University of Dhaka which has got two conference rooms with the latest state of art facilities such as multimedia, public speaker system, air-condition and provision for uninterrupted alternative electric supply.
Class size has been kept small (maximum number of students in a class is 35) deliberately in order to manage the class efficiently and fairly and thereby provide high-quality education to the students. Mode of teaching is participatory and inclusive. The medium of instruction of all programs of the department is English. Faculty Teaching Evaluation is regularly conducted to ensure the quality of teaching. Led by a senior member of the faculty, the Department maintains an Institutional Quality Assurance Cell that serves as an internal watchdog on quality and ethical matters. The department encourages students to participate in the class to make it lively and it considers their opinion and contribution valuable and complementary. In most case, lectures are delivered through multimedia and PowerPoint presentation. Lecture handouts, reading materials, and references are readily given to the students. The department provides a good number of scholarships in two categories-need-based scholarship for the financially weak students and merit-based scholarship for high-performing students to take their study forward. Students very often participate in various events such as sports, debate, music completion both at home and aboard. It is worth mentioning that Dhaka University has won a Facebook-based anti-extremism campaign in global competition (Peer to Peer: Facebook Global Digital Challenge) that saw the participation of 160 teams from 70 countries. This team consists of students from a number of departments including Development Studies, and the delegation was led by a faculty member of this Department.
Graduates are well established in their own profession. Experiences so far suggest that development Studies graduates have high job prospects. Our graduates are currently found working in the government, business, non-government and international organizations with pride and reputation. Upon receiving prestigious scholarships including Fulbright and Commonwealth Scholarships, a substantial number of students go abroad for pursuing higher studies in reputed universities in Europe and North America. Students of development studies very often receive such national acclaim and recognition as the Prime Minister’s Gold Medal and Dean’s award.