On the 15January 2026, the ‘Dhaka Declaration’ was adopted with eight strategic commitments, aimed at building a stable, inclusive, innovative and globally acceptable higher education system in the South Asian region at the third South Asian Regional Conference on State of Higher Education (SARCHE), 2026.

Advisors of the interim government, vice-chancellors of different public and private universities, scholars, researchers and diplomats were present at the third SARCHE 2026 Conference in Dhaka, emphasising the paramount importance of Education diplomacy.

The Nobel Laureate, Chief Adviser of the government, Professor Muhammad Yunus on 12th January 2026 inaugurated a three-day South Asian regional conference on higher education in Dhaka. The conference titled “South Asian Regional Conference on State of Higher Education and Future Pathway (SARCHE 2026)” organised by the Bangladesh government and World Bank funded Higher Education Acceleration and Transformation (HEAT) Project of the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh.

Prof. Yunus’s call

Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, has called upon the academics to align the education system with the youths’ expectations and aspirations and stressed on revival of the SAARC to enhance regional academic cooperation. “Today, I feel very excited that academics at the highest level could get together in Dhaka. It’s important that this is Dhaka. I hope you will have a chance to kind of review of the things that have happened in Dhaka in the past few months,” he said, referring to post-2024 July Uprising events in Bangladesh. Prof Yunus said review of those events will clarify what university education and education as a whole are really about, adding, this should be the core subject of discussion at the gathering.Highlighting the role of students in the 2024 uprising, he said, “Who are these young people that we are dealing with? They have their own mind. They stood up and raised their voices and brought down the ugliest fascist regime you could ever think of given their lives”.The Chief Adviser made the remarks while addressing the inaugural ceremony of the three-day “South Asian Regional Conference on State of Higher Education and Future Pathway (SARCHE 2026)” at a city hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 30 international representatives, including delegates from the United Kingdom, the Maldives, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as representatives from the World Bank were represented in the event.”It would be a missed opportunity if you don’t spend some time on understanding what they did a few months back in this very city. What was their expectation? What was their aspiration? Why did they stand up in front of guns and give their lives knowingly it will happen,” the Chief Adviser said.To reflect the students’ motivation behind joining the uprising, he referred to school student Shaheed Shahriar Khan Anas’s letter, which he wrote to his mother before embracing the martyrdom, stating that it was his duty to take to the street with his friends, who were subjected to state-sponsored crackdown.Noting that the event was not a sudden outburst, Prof Yunus said it happened in Sri Lanka and in Nepal too, but it happened in a bigger way in Dhaka.

WB thanked for organisng event

He thanked the World Bank for organizing the conference, saying, “This was our responsibility to organize, but we failed. The World Bank has to step into make it happen”.Organizing such gatherings was part of the responsibility under the South Asian Association for Region-al Cooperation (SAARC), the Chief Adviser said, adding, but the SAARC as a word has been forgotten and “that’s a shame on us”. “This was supposed to be the idea of SAARC that we get together and make exchanges and learn from each other,” he said, noting his efforts since he has taken the responsibility as the Chief Adviser to revive the SAARC. “I am repeatedly reminding that we must get back to SAARC. That’s where our family belongs to. And I will not give up repeating that appeal to the governments of the region,” Prof Yunus said,Speaking about the forthcoming national elections and the referendum on February 12, he said the uprising tore everything apart and that the young people created their own July Charter to undo what the country was stuck with.

Referendum on Constitution

Chief Adviser said there would be a referendum to decide what the future constitution of Bangladesh should be, because they believed the root of the problems lay in the constitution. He said those issues were not taught in classrooms and questioned where universities stood in this reality. Noting that the young people have now formed their own political party, Prof Yunus said, “I’m sure some of them will get elected. “He called on educators to reflect on what education and university education should be in this very different world, warning that old ways of doing things are self-destructing and that change must happen quickly, just as the youth acted quickly during the July and August uprising.”So this is one issue, I hope this will be taken up seriously in this gathering where we are, what is being missed, how we can run and be in the front, rather than falling behind,” the Chief Adviser said.

He then said that the education system was not appropriate because it is job-oriented, adding, the system is designed around the idea that students must become suitable for jobs, and “If he or she fails to take a job, we think failure on the part of that student, not us”.Prof Yunus questioned whether the purpose of education is to prepare people for the job market. Human beings are not born as slaves and that each human being is a free person, he said, adding, jobs come from the tradition of slavery, where people work under orders for pay, which he equated with slavery.Stating that the young people who marched on the state refused to be slaves, he said, “So, what kind of education that you will be giving? This is a question I raise with you. You may dismiss it. You may pause for a while. But this is my point. Should we continue this education to create slaves? Turning creative beings into slaves, that’s a criminal job”. Prof Yunus said he translated creativity into entrepreneurship and argued that education should teach young people to be entrepreneurs rather than job seekers. He said young people should be told they are job creators and agents of change, driven by imagination, adding that imagination is the essence of human beings, and that people are born with enormous imagi-native power, which drove the youth to give their lives for the vision of a new Bangladesh.

Besides, representatives of UGCs and higher education commissions from SAARC member countries, vice-chancellors of universities from different countries, academicians and researchers took part in the conference.

Aim of the conference

According to the UGC, Bangladesh the conference has been organised aimed at elevating higher education in Bangladesh to a new height and further strengthen the UGC network among SAARC countries.

A total of eight sessions were held over the three-day conference. Emphasizing on “The Current State of Higher Education in South Asia: Governance, Quality and Inclusion” and “Research, Innovation, Sustainability and Social Engagement, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Integration, Digital Transformation and Smart Learning Ecosystems”, “Increasing Employment for Graduates and Industry–Academia collaboration”, “Future Pathways of Higher Education: Cooperation, Solidarity and Networking, “Stakeholder Dialogue on Higher Education Transformation: Voices of Civil Society”, and “Dialogue with Vice-Chancellors: the Context of the HEAT Project, gender issues in higher education will be held while the conference l ended following the adoption of the “Dhaka Higher Education Declaration”.

UGC, Bangladesh warns against fake foreign university branches in Bangladesh. Reports in various media outlets have highlighted several foreign universities, institutes are running unauthorized branch campuses, tutorial centers, and study centers across the country. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has cautioned students and parents against enrolling in three unauthorized foreign universities reportedly operating branch campuses in Bangladesh. According to the commission, American World University, USA; Trinity University, USA; and the Spiritual Institute of New York (State University) have no government or UGC approval to conduct academic activities in the country.

On the other hand, higher education has considered as a strategic necessity for the Maldives and called for enhanced regional cooperation, industry – academia collaboration, and impact – oriented research to support inclusive growth and resilience across the region.

While Pakistan has reached its greater heights in implementation of their AI policy, World bank is acting as a strong partner in developing these endeavors of regional partners.

Lessons to be learnt

We as a country has spent huge amount of expenditure in higher education, grants and research endeavors where majority of them have took place in western academic scenario. Our attitude as Sri Lankans do not wish to learn from regional partners and we highly embrace western based cultures and their development, while regional partners have emerged beyond Sri Lanka. Very few academia is passionately engaged in development initiatives while majority have violated bonds and residing in overseas lavishly having used government expenditure which should have spent on the public wellbeing of this Country. I wonder how many governments should take control of this paradise isle to understand this reality, still we are grappling with 17 universities under the Universities act with very few international student recruitments. The case of other State Universities cannot cater the increasing local demand as they need to keep their standards. In such a scenario admission of international students and their increasing demands are questionable? Our immigration do not facilitate as a separate compartment to facilitate international student recruitment like in Malaysia.

The government enacted the Private University Act in Bangladesh in 1992 and replaced in 2010. These laws were enacted to enable private universities to supplement the governments efforts in meeting the growing demand for higher education. Under the Act, private individuals, groups and philanthropic organizations are permitted to establish and operate self -financed, degree-awarding universities by fulfilling prescribed conditions. Due to rapid increase, the 2010 Act introduced Stricker provisions focused on quality assurance, accountability and good governance. It mandates statutory bodies such as Board of trustees, Syndicate and Academic Council and clearly defines their roles and responsibilities. The Vice chancellor serves as the chief executive and academic officer of the university and is the ex-officio member the Board of Trustees. The honorable president of Bangladesh act as the chancellor of all private universities and appoint key officials upon recommendations of the Board of trustees. The Act also mandates establishment of an accreditations council to ensure quality assurance UGC supervises and monitors private universities on behalf of the Ministry of Education, approves academic programs, curricula, prescribe minimum faculty qualifications and requires transparency through annual audited financial reporting.

However, many decades have gone and the Transnational education specifically in higher education in Sri Lanka is a struggle of Authority and Power. Many of the view that the Ministry of Higher Education does not cater the entire gamut of private Higher Education Institutes operating in Sri Lanka and do not address public issues. While UGC alone handles many of the public issues even in the transnational education with no authority in non-state sector. Hence, proper enactments under one umbrella need to be empowered for the sake of public. Sri Lankan practice is the Committees appointed to address public issues does not have genuine interest or knowledge to serve this sector rather depend on benefits derived.

Therefore, SARCHE 2026 has opened eyes of Sri Lanka on how the private sector should have healthy competition with public sector, while contributing massively to strengthen the economy.

Transnational Education in Sri Lanka

According to British Council reports on transnational Education,20224 and the SAARC regional Coordinator for the British Council was of the view that Sri Lanaka does not maintain a official repository for transnational education. The Company registrar or the Board of investment do not have a official repository which serves only for higher education purpose. There is no regulatory authority to address the agency problem engaged in transnational education where finally many have reported as unethical business practices.

While India, Pakistan, Maldives and Bangladesh massively invest on Transnational education to strengthen their economies we still do not have a national plan to address this with a regulatory mechanism with proper licensing, listing for Agents to operate in Sri Lanka in order to mitigate Education fraud.

Conclusion

There was a time when students who could not secure admissions to public universities turned to private universities as a last option. That really has changed significantly. Today, many students who qualify for public universities still choose private universities because they do not get admission to their preferred subjects. The primary reason is the freedom to study the subject of their choice. However, in Sri Lanka very few private entities provides a truly a university experience. While regional partners have improved beyond 100 in establishing private universities, still private public partnership in those countries are very best examples for Sri Lanka. According to the UGC,2023 Annual report there were 341,000 students enrolled across 110 private universities in Bangladesh, now has increased to 170 according to SARCHE,2026.

Pakistan maintains best examples of Artificial Intelligence models with World Bank Funding to their University System. University Business linkages in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh provide strong examples in Transfer of Technology. While Maldives will cater for the next round of SAARC conference on the state of higher education. They invite Sri Lanka along with regional partners for preparation of qualification framework with mutual recognition of qualifications with credit transfer facility. The “Dhaka declaration of Higher Education “was adopted at the SARCHE 2026, It intend to cooperate with regional partners in many aspects in Higher Education. With these concluding remarks it is high time to consider different aspects of higher education in the proposed reforms.

By Dr. Janadari Wijesinghe