Thousands of students go abroad every year for higher studies in the absence of adequate seats and the unabated erosion in the quality of education in many public and private universities at home.
Besides, the rising costs of education in the private universities are also forcing the students to go abroad.
According to the data available with the immigration department, 29,484 Bangladeshi students went abroad to take up higher education in the last five years (2010-2014).
Experts said many of these students are talented and most of them prefer not to return home on completion of their studies thus depriving the country of their services.
Besides, the brain-drain has paved the way for employment of foreign nationals in local industries at the cost of hard-earned foreign exchange, they added.
However, educationists have blamed small number of faculties in the country's universities and poor monitoring of education for the exodus of students.
Moreover, the government's apathy towards facilitating young teachers to acquire higher degrees locally also stands in the way of quality education in the universities, they added.
"The government should increase scholarships for the local talents so that they can contribute more to the universities. The then Pakistan government once took the same measure and achieved a positive result," Vice-Chancellor (VC) and chairman of the University of Asia Pacific Jamilur Reza Choudhury told the FE.
"Besides, there are many Bangladeshi talents who are working in foreign universities. If the government can bring them back by providing incentives, it could be another mechanism of improving the quality of education," he suggested.
"The government should also establish more public universities to keep talented students at home along with initiative to bring down cost of education in the private universities so that the poor but talented students can also pursue their studies in the private universities at home."
Former vice chancellor of North South University (NSU), Dr. Hafiz G. A. Siddique alleged that the founders of most of the private universities treated education as 'business' ignoring their social responsibility. This is largely responsible for the deterioration in the quality of education, he said.
He also urged the government to form an accreditation board with eminent educationists to help ensure quality in every step of education in the universities.
"Besides, the university authorities have to be choosy in admitting students to ensure quality. They now mostly consider financial capability of students, not quality," he added.
According to him, a student needs to spend more or less Tk 0.5 million to Tk 2.0 million depending on subject and institution to complete an honours degree in a local private university in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, retired chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Prof. Dr. A K Azad Chowdhury said the Commission cannot do much in this regard as the number of highly qualified teachers in the country is much below the required level.
"The UGC is trying to implement the guidelines given in 'Private University Act 2010' which would help upgrade quality of education in private universities."
However, according to the immigration department, all Bangladeshi students mostly get admitted into different universities and colleges of the United Kingdom (UK), Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, India and Cyprus.
Cost of education in these universities varies from Tk 1.0 million to Tk 3.0 million depending on country and standard of institutions.
"In most cases, students arrange their tuition fees and other boarding, food and other costs through doing part-time jobs," Saikat Ul Bari, managing partner of 'Bright Prospect Admission Consultancy', a foreign university admission consultation firm told the FE.
Meanwhile, former adviser to the caretaker government Dr. Akbar Ali Khan said the brain-drain is obviously a serious hindrance to the country's future development.
"The government should immediately devise means to keep our talents at home for the sake of continued development," he added.
According to official data, around 0.7 million students pass the higher secondary certificate (HSC) examinations every year and only 30 per cent of them get scope for admission into 34 public universities and around 20 per cent get admitted into private universities. Rest of the students either enrol with public and private colleges or go abroad to study subjects of their choice.
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