Exploring faculty perception on the COVID-19 imposed shift in higher education of Bangladesh: A neoliberal analysis

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, governments all around are producing new policy provisions to mitigate the learning gap. Based on the new policy provision, universities switched to online education because social distancing was necessary to stop community transmission of the virus (Crawford et al., 2020). This study aims to explore how faculties perceive the effect of higher education policy response on Bangladeshi students. The paper identifies cost-sharing approach, disregard of policy context, encouragement of global job market competition, decentralisation of management, digitization of education, and individual responsibility as neoliberal features of emergency response. The data were critically analysed to understand the effect of neoliberal features of the emergency response on the university students of Bangladesh from the faculty perspective. The paper argues that the policy response is failing to address the learning gap of the students. Moreover, the implementation of this policy is generating more challenges for students by strengthening the root of social inequality and hindering social mobility.