Quality Assurance in Private Universities of Bangladesh: An Enquiry Into The Desired Level of State Intervention

Research Proposal

Introduction

Bangladesh with its poverty stricken economy coupled with large population base has no choice but to transform its people to skilled human resources through education, in general and higher education, in particular.

As the cost of providing higher education has risen to a very high level, it is no longer possible for government to provide higher education to all. Due to budget constraints new universities cannot be established at government initiative. So the government of Bangladesh looked for private participation in this sector as a way out on the account of increased demand for higher education in the country and allowed private universities (PUs) to operate since 1992.

However, the operations of PUs for last 13 years has been observed to produce mixed results. PUs could bring about some positive changes in the Higher education of the country in terms of increased capacity for higher education, politics-free environment and responsiveness. On the other hand, there are also serious allegations concerning high cost and poor quality of education in most PUs. The situation became so grave that a high power investigation team formed by the government had to put eight PUs in its black list and recommended for the cancellation of their license to operate as “University” in the country.

Against this backdrop, the government opted for more stringent rules for the regulation of the PUs and accordingly preparing for the amendment of the existing Private University Act 1992. This move of the government has received mixed reactions. Some experts view this as badly required for assurance of the quality in PUs. Again others, specially the sponsors and University management consider the move suicidal and against the