As a faculty member of a private university of Bangladesh, my personal opinion regarding the statement is absolutely right. There are more than 60 private universities in Bangladesh but all most all of these are failed to give quality education. Not only that all of these private universities are owner and their relatives oriented. Maximum Private Universities are not following the rules and regulations given or imposed by UGC (University Grant Commission). There is no admission system for students so the quality of the students are very poor. There is no opportunity for the faculty members to do research activities and career development opportunity. That's why i want to say as a citizen of underdeveloped country that  Private Higher Education is nothing but a process of doing good business"

well it depends on the private school it self, if they want to stay in business they should go for quality, quality does not contradict with business, on the contrary, quality support and prospers bushiness, in Jordan we have excellent private universities and some poor quality universities, guess what, the ones with higher quality grow up fast, and the ones with low quality either they close, or they are struggling and have small number of students.

a private university Harvard for instance is one of the best universities in the world, because the knew from the beginning how to run such a business, their main strategy is to push education quality to the limit and to be higher than the state universities, by doing this they convinced the best students to come on board.  

Dear Md. Mizanur Rahman

Private education in some countries may be treated as business, but it is the responsibility of the government to control the quality of universities in the nation. For example in India there is AICTE to enforce standards in professional education while UGC for general education. On top of that there are accreditation agencies that periodically checks the quality of education in the Universities. Even in US we have to go through the same procedures whether it is private or public universities. For engineering programs we have ABET and ATMAE accreditation programs that we have to do every 6 years. If the quality education is provided, then the university will thrive, if not it will lose students and ultimately die.

Quality higher private education is emerging as a hugely profitable business opportunity.India  government is considering setting up a high level of committee of experts to suggest a comprehensive restructuring and revamping of the higher education regulator, University.

As far as Malaysia Private Higher Education, those higher institutions need to fulfill a certain standard determined by the government prior to operate their institution. The body responsible to ensure every private institutions are fulfilled the standard set by the government is MQA ( Malaysia Qualification Agency) under the Malaysia Ministry of Higher Education. Those private institution cannot simplify operate their institution without recognition by MQA. Failure to received that said recognition, the output (students) become difficulties to get the job particularly in the government sectors as well as private sectors sometimes. Therefore, in my opinion Private Higher Education cannot simplify focusing only on the profit agenda but at the same time they also need to focus on the quality of their programmed offered, course content, level of complexity, facilities provided to the students and etc. Those private higher institutions will be audited by the MQA in their predetermined period of time.

As said before, there are excellent, good, bad, and very bad private universities. The bad and the very bad manage to survive, because there are also excellent, good, bad, and very bad scholars. Unfortunately there are many people just looking for a university degree to have in their CV and "get a job." There are at least two parts in each corruption.

Dear All,

I accept your stated Opinions/Comments. 

At the same time I am fully agree with the statement of " Private Higher Education is nothing but a process of doing good business"  except some few service motive Institutions / Universities.

There are many very good private engineering colleges performing and competing with other IIT and NIT

I would beg to differ with the statement  as it is not always business which makes institutions good or bad, it alumni and faculty do. The recent appointment of Nadela as CEO of Microsoft is just a case to point out that he is not an IIT alumni but did his B.Tech. from MIT, Manipal. Similarly, besides public funded IIMs, we also have ISB Hyderabad, which produces management graduates who are at par with any IIM grad. These are just two examples to illustrate that private institutions are not at all inferior to public funded ones. There are good institutions and there are not so good institutions, and it is true for both public and private funded institutions.

This is a debatable issue.  I a green of most what have been discussed.  However, even government universities are deviating from the good quality track.  The input is lower than before so the outcome is poor. Sorry to say that but this is my observation without been political in different faces. Most universities nowadays are recruiting money not good input of students.  Look at the ratio of total students in a classroom to the teaching instructions, labs, facilities. I am sure that there still universities work hard to keep up the standards, but economically speaking can't do it as they wanted. 

Private education by any means is only a Business which earns money for Life long without influence of national or international economical crisis..

Dear Mizanur,

Privatization of education is an emerging system of education around the world. Somalia is one the countries in Africa which has private education system after the collapse of state owned education institutions in 1991. Furthermore, a lot of private primary and secondary schools have been started by educated people to fill the gap of education system in Somalia. Likewise, private higher education institutions have been established in Mogadishu, the capital city and in the other main cities in Somalia.

Although most owners of these institutions claim that they opened non-profit private institutions to help people get education needs and fight against ignorance and illiteracy, but what they are hiding behind curtains is different and the orientation of these education systems is to do good business and make profit for the owners of the institutions.

Consequently, people who criticize private education underlined that privatization of education institution has many pitfalls such as:

1. The actual orientation of the owners of private education institutions is cost minimization and profit maximization.

2. The admission requirements are simplified and the admission process is not transparent.

3. Since students are actual customers and the main source of their income, they are student centered and students come first. Therefore, the status of teachers or lecturers is very low.

4. The quality of teaching and learning is diminishing.

5. Students don’t fail in their assessments; because there is a fear if a student fails he/she might withdraw from institution, therefore the institution recognizes that as loss of a customer and decrease in the income.

6. The ethical standard of the graduators is not good.

7. The knowledge level of the students is generally very low.

In conclusion, privatization of education is just a process doing business and making profit. It will negatively effect on the future of money people unless very tight quality control is done on the private education institutions by the governments.

With the proper regulations Private universities have proven to offer excellent instructions and have graduates with great skills. In Jordan that have earned some of these universities great reputations and their graduates are highly sought nationally and regionally.  The ratios of faculty to students are 1:25 is scientific fields and 1:35 in other fields. Normally they have modern state of the art laboratories and newer facilities. The can update and change much faster. In today’s economies many countries cannot afford to establish enough universities to keep up with the population increases and private universities are needed to plug that gap.

There are excellent private universities, e.g Stanford, USA. We should not forget however that Stanford is build by silicon valley industries, and this counts. In peripheral counties privatisation is rather a commodity and it is not working very good. It is my basic believe that some social processes should be a state one, such us, health, education, water, and mass transportation between others.     

Thank you all researchers for good response.

In our country,  Most of these educational institutions need recognition by a competent body /regulatory authority that are supported by the Government of India, State Governments or by Societies. The Universities include Central Universities, State Universities, and Deemed universities, Private Universities, Universities with PE, Basic Scientific Research institutions and these are recognized by the University Grants Commission (UGC). 

The University Grants Commission (UGC) is liable for coordination, determination and maintenance of standards and release of grants. Professional councils are responsible for recognition of courses, promotion of professional institutions and providing grants to undergraduate programmes and various awards. The statutory professional councils are:

• All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE)

• Medical Council of India (MCI)

• Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR)

• National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE)

• Dental Council of India (DCI)

• Pharmacy Council of India (PCI)

• Indian Nursing Council (INC)

• Bar Council of India (BCI)

• Central Council of Homeopathy (CCH)

• Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM)

• Council of Architecture

• Distance Education Council

• Rehabilitation Council

• National Council for Rural Institutes

UGC monitoring all the above. I accept that education is a  process of business in past days. But  UGC cancelled the private universities recognition as deemed when they  starting a business i.e. not proper infrastructure, but they admitted the students. But more cases private institutions/ colleges give the quality education to the students.  At the same time, few  cases are revert. 

There is a common trend among many of us to praise the public HE systems and criticize  private ones. Before generalizing, we have to study national vision on HE and regulatory frameworks to support and provide Quality HE.