Quality of Higher Education in Bangladesh: Governance Framework and Quality Issues

Ozet: This study is an effort to find out the policy options of higher education as well as students’ perception on specific quality issues of higher education in Bangladesh. This paper is analytical in nature. To attain the objective of the study, 100 master level (MS) students, of Social Science Faculty, Rajshahi University have been interviewed. Respondents were interviewed using semi-structured pre-formulated questionnaire. Secondary sources, moreover, were reviewed to gather input to make this study reliable and valid. The study revealed that the greatest challenge to achieve the standard level quality in higher education is governance related problem. In this research the term governance covers management, policies and practices. There are some rules, regulations and institutional arrangement. Nevertheless, effective implementation of these policies is very rare due to lack of effective governance and professionalism. Furthermore, recruitment and promotion related decisions are not settled on the basis of qualification. In these cases, personal connection, party politics and inter-personal politics play significant role as determinants. Though there are some research works on quality of higher education in Bangladesh, yet it is very difficult to find out which shaded light on the student’s perception about the quality issue of their education considering them as stakeholder or clients. In this backdrop, this study is an effort to find out the students’ perception on specific issues of quality of higher education and offers the assessment of policy options which are supposed to use for ensuring the quality of higher education in Bangladesh.