Education in Emergencies and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education in Bangladesh: Cultural Transformation for Policy and Practice

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically transformed higher education policy and practices across the globe, including Bangladesh. Higher education institutions (HEIs) were forced to deliver teaching and learning online. This chapter discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on teaching and learning practice in higher education in Bangladesh and highlights the cultural transformation of policy and practice. In addition, it proposes future directions on how to be prepared and addresses the challenges of emergencies and draws implications of the findings beyond the national context. In the beginning of the pandemic, most universities in Bangladesh had to initially shut down their operations without offering any alternatives. However, a number of universities gradually rolled out some online teaching and learning activities as the lockdowns kept extending. A large portion of the HEIs struggled to continue their online teaching and learning due to the lack of resources, i.e., devices, technological skills and training, lack of policy, negative mindset, poor network infrastructure, and high cost of internet. This unprecedented situation ushered in by the pandemic showed the lack of preparedness and below-par capacity to respond to emergencies for the continuation of higher education in Bangladesh. Furthermore, it highlighted that improving the higher education sector requires tremendous effort from the government, researchers, policymakers, practitioners, the universities, and other industries directly or indirectly related to the sector.

Citation

Shohel, M.M.C., Ashrafuzzaman, M., Mahmud, A., Azim, F. and Khan, M.S.H. (2023), "Education in Emergencies and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education in Bangladesh: Cultural Transformation for Policy and Practice", Sengupta, E. (Ed.) Higher Education in Emergencies: International Case Studies (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 52), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 31-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120230000052003