TEACHING AND LEARNING EXPERIENCE AT THE NATIONAL UNIVERSITY AFFILIATED TERTIARY COLLEGES IN BANGLADESH
Authors:   BIDS, Ahmed Badrun Nessa , Islam Rizwana ,   BIDS
Published: May 2024

The Government of Bangladesh is currently implementing the College Education Development Project (CEDP) to improve participating colleges' teaching and learning environment and strengthen the strategic planning and management capacity of National University (NU) affiliated tertiary colleges in Bangladesh. The focus of CEDP is to improve the capacity of the National University College system to plan, manage, implement, and monitor institutional programs, as well as strengthen the foundation for the next phase of development activities. CEDP promotes institution-led activities that focus on creating quality teaching-learning environments in government and non-government colleges through the availability of competitive grants. The achievement of the College Education Development Project (CEDP) is the satisfaction level of students, teachers, and employers in terms of the quality and relevance of teaching. To measure the satisfaction level of the relevant stakeholders (i.e., students, teachers, and employers), three beneficiary feedback surveys (i.e., baseline, mid-term, and endline) are planned to be conducted, among which the baseline was carried out in 2019. The Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) conducted the Mid-term Satisfaction Survey in May-June 2022. The mid-term survey is the second of the three planned surveys of the CEDP, measuring the mid-term satisfaction level of the stakeholders, students and teachers of National University-affiliated colleges, and employers of NU graduates. This study uses data from the Mid-term Satisfaction Survey to assess the mid-term satisfaction level of students, teachers, and employers. The study was designed using a mixed-method approach, both quantitative and qualitative, to address the objectives of this study. Data analysis has used both the baseline data collected in 2019 and the mid-term data collected in this study. Using the baseline and mid-term data, a two-round panel data was constructed at the college level. Depending on the specific indicators, the program's effect at the college level was calculated. We compare the overall satisfaction level regarding all the relevant indicators by stakeholder types, i.e., principals, teachers, and students, and observe differences among the average satisfaction levels. The overall teaching and learning environment satisfaction level is 3.81 among college principals, 2.95 among teachers, and 2.57 among students. A similar pattern is also found for other indicators except the collaboration of colleges with industries. The satisfaction level regarding the collaboration of colleges with industries is noted as the lowest for principals (1.62) and teachers (1.76), and for students, it is slightly higher (2.10 on a scale of 5). The lowest satisfaction level among students is recorded for connectivity through the internet (1.89), and the highest for teaching skills (3.92). The regression results show that for the full sample, the Difference-in-Difference (DiD) of the satisfaction scores on the quality of academic infrastructure, the quality of internet connection, and the quality of facilities for students’ soft skill improvement are statistically significant. The DiD for the other two satisfaction scores, namely, the teaching and learning environment and the degree of industry linkage, are not statistically significantly different from zero. These results show that the colleges that received Institutional Development Grants (IDGs) have made a positive and statistically significant impact on the improvement of the quality of academic infrastructure, quality of internet connection and other related facilities, and quality of facilities for students’ soft skill compared to those who did not receive this grant. However, the grant has made some changes in the teaching and learning environment and the degree of industry linkage between IDG awarded colleges and IDG non-recipient colleges. These changes are not statistically significant. The overall findings from the mid-term satisfaction survey highlighted that: (1) Institutional Development Grant (IDG) has made positive and statistically significant impact on the improvement of quality of academic infrastructure, quality of internet connection and other related facilities, and quality of facilities for students’ soft skill compared to those who did not receive this grant; (2) The grant has made some changes in the teaching and learning environment and the degree of industry linkage between IDG-awarded colleges and IDG non-recipient colleges. These changes are not significant enough to increase the satisfaction level of the students, teachers, and principals. Therefore, this study proposes these recommendations for increasing the overall satisfaction level of all stakeholders: (1) The poor level of industry collaboration has been highlighted by all types of beneficiaries. To facilitate industry collaboration, job fairs should be organised every year, preferably at the district level; (2) Introducing short course facilities can increase the job market opportunities of the NU-affiliated colleges; (3) Subject-based pedagogical training for the NU teachers is highly recommended; (4) The interrelation and collaboration between NU-affiliated colleges and universities should be increased. The colleges that are not well equipped with enough facilities can collaborate with the universities to share their equipment, such as computer labs, libraries, scientific labs, etc. This will help the less privileged colleges provide quality teaching and learning facilities to the students; (5) Forming and activating the activities of Alumni Associations in the NU-affiliated colleges; (6) There should be funds available for the renovation of old academic buildings, addition to an existing building, and upgrading labs and research facilities for teachers wherever appropriate, (7) There should be some provision of need-based funds/emergency grant that might be used or made available to the college authorities in case of sudden emergency or need (e.g., a sudden flash flood in Sylhet division)