A government’s project, with support from the World Bank (WB), has made significant progress in improving quality of education and promoting academic innovation, the WB said on Monday.
The Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) is being implemented through the University Grants Commission (UGC). “The project, in its fifth year of implementation, has recorded significant progress, especially in promoting academic innovation in the country’s higher education institutions through two rounds of Academic Innovation Fund (AIF),” the WB said. The project has worked with universities to establish science labs, computer labs, library automation systems, campus network and provide access to books and journals for the students and faculty members of universities to spur academic innovation in Bangladesh universities.
The call for proposal for the third round of AIF was announced on February 8, 2014. The completed proposals from the eligible 46 universities (32 public and 14 private) have been received by UGC on March 2014.
The project promotes academic innovation in both public and private universities through a competitive funding mechanism, known as the Academic Innovation Fund (AIF). The successful implementation of the project led to US$125 million in additional financing from the World Bank.
The HEQEP has provided universities in Bangladesh with much needed research infrastructure in the form of state-of-art equipment and instruments for science laboratories, modernized computer labs and digital libraries to bring forth more innovation in research, finds an interim impact assessment of the project.
The UGC Digital Library created by the project is now providing science, engineering and medical journals for teachers and students free of cost through specialized e-resource providers.
Thirty-five universities have already been connected to the Bangladesh Research and Education Network (BdREN) and establishment of the basic infrastructure backbone to connect all remaining public universities by January 2015 is progressing well.
The Government is working to put in place a National Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council, which will be a breakthrough in ensuring that quality degree programs are delivered by the universities of Bangladesh. The World Bank is providing US$206 million for the project.
