Quality higher education is evidently a critical element of development which a country like Bangladesh must build if it is to make progress in the contemporary world that feeds on knowledge and breeds on competition. The only way Bangladesh can narrow its income gap with developed world economies is by using knowledge earned by graduates from the universities. Mechanisms for assuring the best possible quality must be put in place in the various institutions to enable them take a critical self analysis of their programmes and institutional capacity. Quality higher education prepares people for the knowledge-based economy and also provides a stimulus for creativity and innovation. Universities need to ensure international standards of quality and education that is professionally and socially relevant to 21st-century realities.
The seats of higher learning must prepare graduates to live and work in a globalised world with equal advantage. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, higher education had witnessed a long period of stagnation. Naturally the neglect has resulted in a gross decline–especially regarding quality of teaching and research activities–in the quality of higher education and unfortunately this decline became evident at a time when higher education was experiencing escalating enrolments, declining resources, academic brain-drain, etc.
 The fact is that as a nation, most Bangladeshis have failed to understand the true meaning of acquiring education. Since their admission in schools, children have always been taught to get education to seek a good job, and the policymakers have never thought to seek education beyond this. Most are firm in this belief that those who have completed their 16 years of education and have to find a job, be it through legal procedure or through bribery, are the most successful people throughout their lives.
Majority of our population lives in rural areas, but no serious steps have been taken to provide better educational facilities, quality education and trained teachers to ensure enrollment and attendance of children in schools in the rural settlements. The standard of the faculty and their devotion to teaching has come under scrutiny. Also many students not prepared for tertiary education are getting admitted to the universities. The high pass rates at HSC and SSC exams do not necessarily mean that the standards have improved correspondingly.
Just as it is impossible to construct a building without strong foundation it would be unwise to expect an improvement in standards in higher education without standards in higher education without improving the quality of primary, secondary and higher secondary institutes.
Most countries are devoting a large share of the national income and encouraging the private sector to improve the academic institutions. Bangladesh needs to follow suit.