The role of higher education in institutionalising climate change in bangladesh

Abstract

Since the inception of higher education (HE) over one hundred years ago, its purpose has been to cater for the religious and social leaders who will be competent enough to run the country. Paradigm shifting in HE has made society realise that every profession demands competent professionals to provide balanced development across all educational sectors in order to see national development progress. As a result, universities now provide a wide range of training and education in the arts, sciences, social sciences and commerce, which may have caused the recent IT and e-commerce revolution. However, the primary contribution of HE is still seen as supporting economic development because it contributes less than other developmental phenomena. In developing nations, the issue of climate change is yet to be perceived either as an economic or as a social developmental agenda item. Consequently, HE provides less attention to climate change. However, climate change has a serious impact not only on economic development but also on social development. Therefore, HE needs to discover a concrete and substantial way in which to handle climate change. This novel piece of research, which is the first of its kind in Bangladesh, used qualitative methods in order to outline the policy direction that HE may adopt to make its role more distinct in handling climate change.