Quantity Over Quality in Higher Education: The Bangladesh Context 

 Published on: August 1, 2026

The increase in the number of graduates and postgraduates generally indicates educational progress for a society. However, in the era of AI breakthroughs, this generalised concept is being challenged all over the world. Furthermore, the context of Bangladesh is even more complex, as the quality of higher education was being questioned long before the AI revolution. Nowadays, when a Harvard degree is not as precious as it used to be, is it really necessary for a developing country such as Bangladesh to invest heavily in producing mass number of graduates? Is it a feasible education policy, and is it economically viable? These questions remain unanswered at the policy level, but the impact is certainly being felt at the root level. 

According to the recent report by Dhaka Tribune, Bangladesh now has a record number of unemployed graduates, approximately 906,000. However, the gravity of the real scenario is incomprehensible merely by looking at this figure, as this particular figure does not represent the underemployed graduates. If we take underemployment into account along with graduate unemployment, the real scenario may seem far more dangerous. First of all, the huge number of unemployed youth would naturally be diverted to chaos by the political stakeholders. Secondly, even if we supposedly take the honest intention of political stakeholders into consideration, it is undeniable that the law enforcement forces would be facing a serious challenge to tackle random incidents caused by such a large number of unemployed young adults. Most importantly, the straightforward question should be, who will feed them? The state? The state that is already burdened with mega projects and its loan repayment schedule is not capable of bringing this large number of people under the social safety net programme even if it wants to. The families that are supposed to be supported by their young adult member has to do the opposite, and by that, the financial stability of the smallest unit of a state collapses. 

So, the question of reconsidering the number of graduates remains valid, and it should be asked. Do we really need as many university and college graduates as we are producing at the moment? The increasing number of government job aspirants showcases the fact that there are not many options for graduates anyway. On the other hand, the agricultural sector is facing a shortage of labourers nowadays. It can be argued that the old agrarian society of Bangladesh was an ideal one, even economically better off than today’s RMG industry based economy if we financially calculate the cost of damage to natural resources while developing the RMG sector rather than only focusing on the revenue itself, but even the RMG sector and other heavy industries began to report labourer shortages. So, the recent graduates from random public and private universities as well as from random colleges, with their graduate degree are not interested in starting their career from the bottom in these heavy industries, nor interested in involving themselves in agriculture. So, the degree that is supposed to find them better employment, is often works as a hindrance toward finding employment and doing nothing rather than boosting their ego that they deserve a better job. Its impact on our economy is multidimensional, as discussed before, from ruining the financial capacity of families to creating a shortage of labourers in the agricultural societies that may ultimately push us towards a national food production shortage. So, should higher education be discouraged rather than encouraged?

There is no simple answer, but from the discussion above, it is clear that encouragement in higher education and producing mass number of graduates by establishing universities in every district is certainly not going to help the development story of Bangladesh pragmatically. It may seem lucrative on paper, the development organisations may flamboyantly show off their ground level work in ensuring the right to education for all, but in reality, it has a higher probability of backfiring. The purpose or intention of this discussion is not at all to discourage the right to education. In fact, ensuring the right to education for everyone is one of the key responsibilities of a progressive state. The key factor here is the type of education that the institutions are offering and the level of education that is being offered after the Higher Secondary level. Continuing studies after higher secondary level should not automatically mean going for an honours level graduation. The topic of encouraging vocational education and practical skills has always been a hot topic in Bangladesh for the past 10-15 years, but we need to think even beyond that. Of course, more vocational graduates with skills such as plumbing or nursing would make our lives easier and our youth would be better prepared to move anywhere in the world with these specialised skills. However, it has not been the case until now just because of one single factor: Language barrier. Without ensuring fluency in at least English language, vocational degrees and skills globally do not carry weight. So, that’s a reform that should be done at the primary level, not in higher education. As far as higher education is concerned, even beyond vocational degrees and bachelor’s degrees, we need to consider various diploma degrees for different groups of people. Going for a diploma degree is so uncommon in Bangladesh, whereas it can solve two problems at once, offering in-demand short duration courses, of course, but it also solves an underlying psychological problem; it will not boost a fake ego, and therefore, it may be easier for a lot of people to enter the heavy industries and to start their career from the bottom. 

Overall, reducing the number of graduates in Bangladesh is now a genuine and urgent demand to grow our economy further and not to burden it with unemployed youth. Without discouraging the youth for higher education, offering different types of degree programmes after the HSC level and also slowly reducing less practical degree programmes should be the focus. There is no doubt that a diploma in mechanical engineering is much more valuable than a honours level bachelor’s degree in Bengali or Philosophy. The purpose of this statement is not to undermine the importance or significance of a bachelor’s degree in humanities disciplines, rather the purpose of this statement is to put emphasis on the fact that everyone does not fit for every degree. A bachelor’s degree in Bengali or Philosophy, per se, should be an important degree and only be reserved for a very few people who are capable of making a career out of it, who are capable of engaging in further research in these disciplines, and should not be used as a stepping stone of filling up a form for government jobs. Taking bold policies to reform our education system today may provide us with an opportunity to create a vibrant economy tomorrow. Otherwise, the demographic dividend of today may become a demographic burden in the future.