BS in CEE
Overview
As a developing country, Bangladesh is going through a massive growth in its construction sector, while developing its basic infrastructure facilities. Along with the recent boom in the real estate sector, Padma Bridge, Elevated Expressway, Metro rail, Four lane of Dhaka Chittagong highway, Dhaka Gazipur BRT line, New Justification of Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of railway service, Deep sea port, Ganges Barrage, surface water treatment plants are some of the examples of upcoming big structures, and all of these huge undertakings will require the service of a large number of civil engineering graduates.
The growth rate in the construction sector is assumed to be much higher than the average GDP growth in Bangladesh. In fact, out of the total budget for Annual Development Program (ADP), around 60% is spent in infrastructural development. It is expected that at least for the next 40 to 50 years, this growth rate will continue at the same pace, which may later stabilize when development stage is further matured. In addition, there is a growing job market for civil engineers abroad as well and a large number of Bangladeshi civil engineers are employed in the countries in the Middle eastern region, Singapore, Malaysia and also in Europe and North America. In fact, Bangladeshi Civil Engineering education is well reputed worldwide. At the same time, environmental consequence of all kinds of developmental effort is another global concern so that civil engineering education in recent time includes environmental studies as an indispensable part of it.
Most of urban environmental issues like traffic jam, drainage congestion, solid waste management, water supply and sanitation, sewerage and storm water management, Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) design and management in industries, Environmental Management System (EMS), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of development projects, etc are always dealt by civil engineers. Apart from this, at a bigger scale all sorts of water resources structures and management issues as flood control, coastal embankment and protection, dam, reservoir, barrage, river bank protection, river morphological study and hydrological analysis, etc are parts of civil engineering application as well. Climate Change and its impact in the infrastructure sector including water resource is a major field usually dealt by civil engineers, which include assessing the impact and finding solution or adaptation means to cope with.
It is worth mentioning that NSU, being a pioneer educational institute in Bangladesh, had already explored these issues and decided to open Civil and Environmental Engineering degree in 2003, which was later approved by University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2004. After completion of 20 years of its service and having a big new campus, it is high time NSU expands its scope in terms of academics, i.e. introducing new departments and in that case civil engineering may be a prospective one.
Again, to strengthen the engineering faculty, it is of utmost importance that all basic engineering courses are taught here. NSU already has Architecture, Environmental Science and Management, Computer and Electrical Engineering department so that addition of Civil and Environmental Engineering will be a big step towards a full-fledged engineering faculty.