Determinants of Tertiary Education Quality in Bangladesh

The concept of quality in tertiary education, which entails creating and advancing knowledge for developing enlightened citizens those can contribute to the development of a country is multifaceted in nature. It can only be ensured by activities and functions of quality control mechanism which are carried out by the graduates in their university academic periods. But, in case of Bangladesh, there is no specific quality assurance mechanism effective rather different are used with respect to public universities, private universities, and tertiary level college. And, most of the cases there is no provision of external review of quality. As a result measuring tertiary education quality as a whole most of the cases cannot be possible. But, irrespective of the institution there are some common issues or determinants which significantly affect the tertiary education quality. And, the objectives of this paper are to identify those determinants and evaluate their relative importance with respective to ensuring tertiary education quality. To perform the objectives primary data have been collected through formal questionnaire from 167 respondents including teachers and students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) by random sampling method. Primarily, this research takes into account 20 determinants i.e. entry requirements of the students, sound teaching ability impartiality in evaluation, sincerity of teacher, accountability of teacher, communication capability of teacher, infrastructural facilities, research opportunities, seminar and workshops, teaches polities, student politics, class size, session jam, reputation of the institution, program curricula, practical implication of knowledge, career potentials, medium of instructions, extracurricular activities, and cost of education, as effective in ensuring tertiary education quality. From the analysis of respondents’ data, it is found that sincerity of teacher is the most important determinant in ensuring tertiary education quality while communication capability of the teacher is of second choice to the respondents. The determinants which are of lowest value to respondents are teachers politics followed by student politics also. After the analysis of data this paper makes an overview on current status of these determinants in Bangladesh. Finally, this paper offers some recommendations regarding the enhancement of tertiary education quality in Bangladesh for making the graduates more competent in facing the challenges of 21st century.