Bangladesh’s university reforms should prioritize quality and encompass the private sector

Bangladesh has seen the number of students enrolled in tertiary education rise sharply in recent years, in line with the country’s wider development efforts. The state has opened several new universities and departments, and more have been set up by private and philanthropic organizations.

However, both public and private-sector universities and colleges are oversubscribed and in need of reform. But reforms in public universities have been sporadically discussed, including by policy-makers, for several years. On the other hand, a little debate has mostly focussed on combining both state and private institutions until now.

Education is a human right, and also—especially at tertiary level—essential to a country’s overall economic growth and development. 

As the quality problems are largely common to both the public and the private sectors, any effective reform should include both in their design and their scope of implementation, according to the participants of the workshop organized jointly by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and University of Dhaka in October.

Education is a human right, and also—especially at tertiary level—essential to a country’s overall economic growth and development. Higher education makes the workforce more productive, moves it up the value chain of production, and contributes more to a knowledge-based, equitable society. Bangladesh is committed to improving its education at all levels as it approaches middle-income status amid efforts to diversity and digitalize its economy.

Despite the best efforts of the state and other actors, Bangladesh’s higher education remains beset by a range of problems. These include weak policies, lack of governance, poor relations between students and teachers, academic under-performance, and a focus by private bodies on financial profit.

FES has been working on these challenges of tertiary education reform since 2014 via a range of activities including workshops and primary research, with a focus on the University of Dhaka (DU), and in collaboration with that university’s Professor Imtiaz Ahmed and Dr. Iftekhar Iqbal. One outcome of this work is the book titled “University of Dhaka: Making Unmaking Remaking.”

The focus was expanded in 2017 by engaging stakeholders of private universities, to add weight to the calls for reforms in the sector and to discuss the future of higher education—including the private and public universities.

The Education Weeks of FES Bangladesh in August were a sequel to this activity. Almost 260 students, 4 vice-chancellors, 120 faculty members and a number of management staff participated in the two workshops on public universities in Rajshahi and Chittagong and four workshops on private universities in Dhaka.