M M Shahidul Hassan

Bangladesh has come a long way in expanding higher education since its independence in 1971. What began with only six universities and about thirty-one thousand students has grown into 55 public and 112 private universities, enrolling nearly five million students today. In 2024 alone, around nine lakh students graduated. Yet, despite this impressive growth, many graduates are struggling to find suitable jobs. Last year, the unemployment rate rose to 3.66%, with university graduates comprising the largest share of those without work. Paradoxically, the country spends nearly US$9 billion each year on salaries for foreign professionals—an unmistakable indication of the mismatch between the skills our graduates possess and the demands of the job market.
This disconnect points to a deeper systemic problem: our higher education system is failing to meet the needs of both students and the economy. It also lacks a coherent strategy to align academic programmes and enrolment patterns with the realities of the job market and the opportunities emerging in new industries. We must now confront a pivotal question: why the system has not evolved to meet the demands of a fast-changing, technology-driven world.
Our universities still operate much like the factories of the early 20th century—rigid in structure, lecture-driven, and centred on standardised testing. In public universities, a student’s performance is determined by a single, high-stakes final exam covering the whole syllabus— a practice that overwhelmingly rewards memorisation over mastery. Private universities, though somewhat more flexible, largely follow the same traditional pattern, relying on compartmentalised curricula where creativity and innovation receive little emphasis. This model once suited industrial economies and bureaucratic job markets, but it is ill-equipped for today’s innovation-driven, Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) world.

Learning from Asia’s Transitions
While several Asian nations have already adapted their higher education systems to meet modern challenges, Bangladesh has fallen behind.
India, for example, has moved from rote-based education to more flexible and multidisciplinary learning through its National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The policy encourages universities to adopt a multidisciplinary approach, integrate technical and vocational skills, and emphasise critical thinking and creativity.
Japan, facing an ageing population and shrinking workforce, views the 4IR as both a challenge and an opportunity. Its universities align with the Society 5.0 vision—where digital transformation enhances human well-being and productivity. Higher education reforms emphasise AI and robotics across disciplines, problem-based learning, and close collaboration between academia and industry. Lifelong learning has become a core principle, recognising that in an era of rapid technological change, education can no longer end with graduation.
Singapore offers another powerful example. Its universities have embraced agility, aligning education closely with national economic priorities. The “Skills Future” initiative promotes continuous learning and reskilling for citizens of all ages. Higher learning institutions have restructured programmes to foster entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and multidisciplinary learning. Through constant dialogue with industry, Singapore ensures its graduates remain globally competitive and future-ready.

Across these countries, a clear shift is evident: higher education is moving from knowledge transmission to skills cultivation—from teaching what to think to teaching how to learn and adapt. This global movement holds vital lessons for Bangladesh, where universities must also break from tradition and prepare graduates for a world driven by innovation, automation, and lifelong learning.
Why Bangladesh Has Yet to Shift
Unfortunately, no meaningful transformation has yet taken place. The reasons are not difficult to identify. Limited faculty involvement in educational reform, recurring campus unrest, pervasive influence of politics within universities and absence of strategic foresight among policymakers have left the system stagnant.  Added to this is the enduring legacy of colonial education—a system originally designed to produce compliant administrators rather than independent thinkers and innovators. That utilitarian model valued rote learning, obedience, and conformity—qualities ill-suited to the demands of the 21st-century workforce.
Some private universities have introduced modest reforms in curricula, teaching, and assessment methods, but these efforts remain isolated and far from transformative.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently taken a praiseworthy step by instructing all universities to adopt Outcome-Based Education (OBE), a globally accepted framework aimed at aligning learning outcomes with employable skills. However, OBE—developed in the 1980s—now faces new challenges in the age of 4IR. It was originally designed for stable, industrial-era economies, where stability, predictability, and standardisation were key. Learning outcomes were predefined, and the focus was on measurable competencies aligned with fixed job roles.
The 4IR presents a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—often described by the acronym VUCA. Job roles are constantly evolving, with many becoming obsolete almost overnight. In this shifting landscape, skills such as adaptability, creativity, systems thinking, and collaboration have become essential. Yet these are difficult to measure within the traditional Outcome-Based Education (OBE) framework. Its linear model of input–process–output no longer fits the dynamic, nonlinear learning demanded by 4IR.
Even so, OBE need not be discarded—it can be reimagined. To remain relevant, it must evolve from a content- and assessment-driven model to one that emphasises process and adaptability, focusing less on fixed outcomes and more on developing learners’ capacity to think, create, and grow in uncertain environments.

The 4IR Imperative
The world’s transition into the 4IR has exposed the limitations of older educational systems. Fixed knowledge and linear learning processes no longer align with the technology-driven, innovation-centred demands of this new era. Higher education must now foster adaptability, collaboration, creativity, and lifelong learning.
A common question arises: why is the 4IR so different from the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR) that it demands such a radical shift in education? The answer lies in the depth and speed of change. The 3IR was characterised by automation and digitalisation—robots and digital systems improving efficiency within specific sectors. The 4IR, in contrast, integrates the physical, digital, and biological worlds through technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, biotechnology, quantum computing, and 3D printing. The pace of transformation is exponential, with multiple sectors evolving simultaneously.
The 4IR is also transforming the world of work in three major ways: job creation, job transformation, and job displacement. Digital platforms are generating new business models and gig-based employment, while many traditional jobs are being automated. Across Asia, countries like China, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea are already moving toward Industry 5.0, where human creativity and advanced technologies—such as cobots, AI, and digital twins—work together to produce smarter and more sustainable solutions. Unlike Industry 4.0, which placed machines at the centre, Industry 5.0 emphasises partnership between humans and intelligent systems.

For Bangladesh, with its youthful and densely populated workforce, the stakes are high. Without urgent investment in human capital, the country risks being locked into a low-cost labour economy, unable to compete in high-value global markets.
The Need for Adaptive Skills
Whether Bangladesh positions itself in Industry 4.0 or moves toward Industry 5.0, graduates must acquire a new set of adaptive skills—often described as “the skills for learning new skills”. These include critical and creative thinking, complex problem-solving, collaboration, communication, digital literacy, resilience, lifelong learning, an entrepreneurial mindset, and emotional intelligence. Such competencies cannot be developed through lectures or examinations alone. They must be embedded in course design, integrated into learning outcomes, and assessed through activities that reflect real-world uncertainty and complexity.
The Way Forward
Our greatest challenge—and our greatest opportunity—is to transform our demographic dividend into our most powerful strategic asset. This requires a fundamental reorientation of higher education. Universities must lead this change by producing graduates who not only compete successfully in the global job market but also create jobs themselves through innovation and entrepreneurship.
However, universities cannot do it alone. Policymakers, industry leaders, and political actors must also embrace this transformation with vision and integrity. It requires investment in faculty development, research, and university–industry collaboration. Above all, it calls for a collective commitment to move beyond outdated thinking toward an education system that nurtures curiosity, adaptability, and human potential.
One crucial step forward would be to conduct a comprehensive national survey of the job market—identifying which sectors are in demand now and which are likely to grow in the future. The findings should guide a strategic plan for university enrolment, ensuring that students enter programmes aligned with both national and global employment trends.

Another pressing issue is the new generation’s growing dependence on the internet for instant access to information, which has fundamentally reshaped how knowledge is acquired and shared. Having grown up in a fast-paced digital world, today’s learners often find traditional, slow-paced classroom lectures less engaging, preferring quick, interactive, and visually rich learning experiences online. Yet excessive reliance on digital platforms can undermine essential human capacities such as collaboration, creativity, leadership, and complex problem-solving. When students spend most of their time in virtual spaces, they miss the interpersonal experiences that come from face-to-face discussions, teamwork, and campus life—experiences vital for holistic personal and professional growth. Universities must therefore strike a balance between digital convenience and the irreplaceable value of human connection in education.
We now live in a world we could scarcely have imagined only a few decades ago. If we fail to act decisively, Bangladesh risks losing not just its competitive edge but also the very spirit of progress and self-determination that inspired the nation’s independence in 1971. The dream of a modern, inclusive, and knowledge-driven society will remain incomplete unless our universities rise to the challenge of producing the graduates of the future.
It remains to be seen how effectively our universities can blend adaptive skills, innovative curricula, and forward-looking teaching and learning methods—while staying true to our national culture, heritage, and the evolving mindset of the new generation—to nurture graduates who can thrive in an era defined by advanced technology, smart manufacturing, and dynamic global services.
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The writer is a Distinguished Professor, Eastern University, Former Professor, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and former VC, East West University