Prime Minister Tarique Rahman has directed the education ministry to establish a specialised public university in Cox’s Bazar named the University of Blue Economy Sciences and Technology.
The directive came after home minister and Cox’s Bazar-1 MP Salahuddin Ahmed sent the prime minister a semi-official letter on the matter. The home minister shared the information on his verified Facebook page Monday (September 14) afternoon.
He also shared the semi-official letter itself on the page. In the letter to the prime minister, the home minister wrote that fully harnessing the vast potential of marine resources in Bangladesh’s Bay of Bengal and coastal areas requires specialised higher education, research, practical training and skilled human resources, all of which remain in significant shortage. Against this backdrop, he wrote, establishing a specialised university named the University of Blue Economy Sciences and Technology in Cox’s Bazar could be an extremely important initiative in the national interest.
The letter further said that building a full new university from scratch requires a long time, substantial funds and separate infrastructure. Given this reality, it said, the existing infrastructure, laboratories, research facilities, scientific manpower, training environment and coastal research framework of the Bangladesh Oceanographic Research Institute, located in Cox’s Bazar, could be used to quickly launch the new university’s initial academic and practical activities. The Bangladesh Oceanographic Research Institute, the letter noted, is already well established in Cox’s Bazar as a national marine research institution.
“As a result, using its existing facilities, the university could begin teaching, research, training and internship activities in its initial phase in areas including oceanography, fisheries and aquaculture, marine environment, coastal resource management, the blue economy, marine information, and tourism and hospitality,” the letter said. This would allow a research-oriented, practical and grounded university to be launched quickly, without waiting for long-term infrastructure construction. If implemented, the letter said, this initiative would ensure the best use of the country’s existing national research infrastructure related to the blue economy on one hand, while building an effective institution for developing skilled human resources for the country’s blue economy sector on the other. The letter concluded by respectfully requesting the prime minister’s kind approval to take the necessary steps to establish a specialised university named the University of Blue Economy Sciences and Technology in Cox’s Bazar, based on the existing academic and research facilities of the Bangladesh Oceanographic Research Institute.