THE GOVERNANCE OF HIGHER EDUCATION OF BANGLADESH THROUGH THE LENS OF NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT

Nowreen Yasmin

Research Associate, M.Sc., BRAC Research and Evaluation Division, BANGLADESH, nowreenyasmin@yahoo.com

     

Abstract

Based on the governance equalizer tool of New Public Management (NPM) this paper examines the Higher Education of Bangladesh as a common regulating scale of governance. The time frame is divided into three periods: past, present and future covering ten years timeline. Essentially review of literature and legislative documents are utilized to analysis the overall situation of governance of higher education of Bangladesh. The analysis reveals that dominant state regulation and high academic self-governance accompanied by considerably low managerial self-governance, stakeholder guidance and competition has been the traits of the past decades. The initiation of National accreditation council in 2010 is one of the few governance reforms of present time. Along with this the state regulation remains same as it was before but there is a decrease of managerial self-governance. The competition level among private universities increase recently and a unique form of academic self-governance “political collegiality” has been developed among the academic communities who directly or indirectly involves with political group which can be mentioned as a negative development of governance in the higher education sector of Bangladesh. On the other hand initiative of National accreditation council is a positive development of the HE sector which can help to create a healthy competitive environment among the universities in near future.

Keywords: Higher Education, Governance, New public management, University, Bangladesh.