ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DEPARTMENT
The door of the Dhaka University, popularly referred to as the Oxford of the East, was opened for the first time on 1 July 1921. The beginning of the study of “Accounting” in Dhaka University is linked to the year 1921 also. The first initiative was to establish the Department of Commerce; then came the movement to transform the Department of Commerce into a faculty where the Department of Accounting was formed as a pioneering Department.
On 31 January 1912, the Muslim delegates of East Bengal and Assam placed some specific proposals to the then Viceroy Lord Hardinge which touched upon different issues of interest to the Muslim community including education. As a response of these proposals, on 2nd February of that year, a decision was taken to prepare the constitution of Dhaka University as a precursor to the establishment of the University. This constitution was subsequently sent to the Government of India in the form of recommendation. Finally, the decision to establish Dhaka University was taken on 23 February 1912 (Roy, 1997: 104).
At its inception in 1921, the University had three Faculties — Arts, Science and Law. In the Faculty of Arts, there were eight Departments — Sanskrit and Bengali, English, Education, History, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Persian and Urdu, Philosophy, and Economics and Politics (DU, 2001b: 17). Accounting was taught as a subject of Commerce in the Department of Commerce under the Faculty of Arts beginning from 1922-23 academic session. At the beginning, the degree awarded was B.Com. (Pass). Since 1948-49 academic session, M.Com. course was introduced. The first batch of students were awarded the M.Com. degree in 1950.
The long-standing history of the present Faculty of Business Studies dates back to 1921 and is linked to the creation of the Department of Commerce and its subsequent transformation into a faculty. The Executive Council (now known as the Syndicate) in its meeting held on 17 December 1921 decided to establish the Department of Commerce from the academic session 1922-23 (Rahim, 1981, pp. 42 & 56). On 7 March 1922, the Academic Council approved the scheme submitted by the Faculty of Arts for the institution of the Bachelor of Commerce Degree (where Accounting was included as a subject) and recommended to the Executive Council to organize the Department of Commerce.
The Academic Council in its meeting held on 3 August 1923 adopted the resolution to hold the B.Com. examination in March 1924. Thus, two-year B.Com. (Pass) degree was started from session 1922-23 and first examination was held in March 1924. Two-year M.Com. degree was introduced from 1948-49, and first examination was held in 1953. Three-year B.Com. (Honours) degree was introduced in 1953 and first examination was held in 1956.
The account of the creation of an independent faculty from the Department of Commerce is traceable with the historic mass uprising of 1969. In the ‘eleven points charter of demand’ of the Chhatra Sangram Parishad declared in January 1969, there were seventeen sub-points under the first point, where the twelfth sub-point included the demand: “To bifurcate the Commerce Department as separate ‘faculty’ in all the universities including the Dhaka University.” In this movement at Dhaka University, roles of a group of Commerce Department’s students who were guided by some teachers, were instrumental to pave the way forward. Realizing the importance of commerce education, the then Vice Chancellor Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury provided necessary support to convert Department of Commerce into a self-governing faculty in order to accommodate the growing demand of quality education in the field. In the meeting of the Academic Council of the University of Dhaka held on 10 August 1970, only two representatives of the Department of Commerce Prof. Abdullah Farouk and Prof. Md. Habibullah raised strong arguments in favour of creating the Faculty of Commerce mentioning that students of intermediate commerce group had only one option for choosing departments, whereas students of intermediate arts group had fifteen departments to choose from. Although in the initial blueprint there was a plan to start with four departments – Management, Accounting, Finance and Marketing, the faculty started its journey with only two Departments, the Department of Management and the Department of Accounting (renamed as Accounting & Information Systems in November 2002) in October 1970. But to make the academic session of 1970-71 effective under the new faculty, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Farouk was appointed as the first Dean of the Faculty of Commerce retrospectively from 1 July 1970. By 1974, two other new Departments (Department of Finance and Department of Marketing) were added to the Faculty.
The Faculty of Commerce was created in 1970 and Prof. Dr. Abdullah Farouqe was the first Dean. The Department of Accounting was established as one of the two pioneering departments of the Faculty of Commerce in 1970. The Department started with 8 teachers and 140 students. Prof. Dr. M. Habibullah became the first Chairman of the Department of Accounting on 09 October 1970. The Faculty of Commerce was renamed as the Faculty of Business Studies on 16 July 1995. At present, the University has 13 Faculties, 83 departments, 12 Institutes, 20 residential halls, 3 hostels and more than 56 Research Centers. Currently, there are around 37,000 students in the University. At present, the Department of Accounting & Information Systems is one of the nine departments in the Faculty of Business Studies having 5 batches of students (one MBA and four BBA batches) with about 1,200 regular students. The department also has three post-graduate and professional programs- MBA (Evening) Program, Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) Program and Master of Accountancy in Taxation (MAT) Program. Finally, M.Phil and PhD programs are also offered in the department.