Quality tertiary education

FOR any underdeveloped or developing country quality education is a fundamental requirement for development. There is a total of 37 public universities and 82 private universities in Bangladesh, according to University Grants Commission (UGC) Annual Report, 2015, to meet the demands of approximately 1.3 million students. UGC as the apex body of the Government for higher education is responsible for funding public universities and maintaining a uniform quality across universities. Although private universities do not get any financial support from the government, they need approval from the UGC to operate and conduct academic activities for awarding degrees. There are many private universities who do not have approval from the UGC, but they are still functionally active. Absence of quality assurance mechanism in Bangladesh is critical. This mechanism includes curriculum reviews by the curriculum committee, assessment of achievement and designing future action plans by the Academic Council, etc. There is no provision for external review of quality for the universities. The National University (NU) is responsible for maintaining the quality at the tertiary level colleges. Nevertheless, the NU is busy mostly with conducting exams and publishing results and it has no activity for ensuring quality of the affiliated colleges. The UGC carries out monitoring of private universities to a limited extent. The private universities need UGC's permission to open and operate departments. But most of the private universities have failed to meet the minimum requirements of physical infrastructures, full time qualified faculty, libraries, teaching aids and other facilities to impart proper education. If this is the case with private universities in Bangladesh, future of tertiary education in Bangladesh appears uncertain. Because of this poor services in education system Bangladeshi students face severe problems when they go for higher education abroad. The government must pay proper attention to this area before it is too late.
Shahanara Alam
BBA, East West University
[email protected]