Determining the Dimensions of Quality Education in Public and Private Universities in Bangladesh: An Empirical Study

Abstract

Ensuring quality education is a prerequisite for sustainable development. Studies suggest the inclusion of relevant variables in finding the determinants of quality tertiary education, as the customers are well-diversified students, their parents and guardians, and academic and administrative staff, each having different needs and objectives. Thus, this paper tries to incorporate forty-nine “quality characteristics,” previously found significant by various studies, with a few uniquely appropriate local characteristics. The characteristics have been grouped under six dimensions: tangibility, competence, attitude, content, delivery, and reliability. Based on the opinion of the “student,” a class of customers, the authors conclude that both for public and private universities, the quality of education mainly depends upon the competence of their academic and administrative staff, the content of their curriculum, and the reliability of the institution.