Curriculum Gaps of Bachelor’s Business Education in Universities of Bangladesh: An Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates about how does a bachelor’s business education curriculum experience different gaps which arise in different phases of curriculum design, development, and implementation process in some selected universities of Bangladesh. This study also proposes a curriculum gap model by defining the different types of curriculum and real-life curriculum gaps. This study conducts a sample questionnaire survey on 155 respondents selected from alumni, employers from different sectors, university faculty members, and students from Jagannath University, ASA University Bangladesh, Jahangirnagar University, University of Dhaka, Dhaka International University through personal contact and interview. Secondary data have been used for this study from different articles, publications, books, speeches in conferences and seminar classes, and from existing master’s and bachelor’s business education curriculum and websites of some selected universities including South China University of Technology, and The University of British Columbia, Canada. This study lists the top most important reasons, such as industry needs are different from university graduation curriculum, there is no connection among university, government, and industry, etc. In Bangladesh, there are no big research projects on industry development and/or business development funded by the companies, conducted by the university, and cooperated by the government. The curriculum gaps also arise while addressing the lessons in the class, there remains a lack of proper sources of information about real life job demand in the context of globalization. This study also lists the top most alternative solutions to minimize curriculum gaps, such as, there should be a thorough study about world-class standard curriculum of different top ranked universities in the world, and employment assessment tests format as per industry needs should be linked with the lessons of university graduation business curriculum, there should be connection among university, government, and industry, etc. This study also proposes a theory by mapping curriculum gap model. These findings and some general comments for improvement have implications to the users of curriculum and decision makers in education sector.