Reimagining Higher Education Governance in South Asia: Pathways of Reform, Innovation and Institutional Transformation

There are radical transformations in the governance of higher education in South Asia, largely because of the challenges posed by demography, competitiveness, the increase in the number of private institutions and demands for accountability and quality. Despite such changes, the governance architecture in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka still faces entrenched issues, such as political meddling, bureaucratic delay, divergence in accreditation capacity and lack of autonomy. The article presents an in-depth, comparative investigation of reforms and innovations in the governance architecture in the three South Asian nations. Based on the framework of governance theory, new public management and postcolonial institutionalism, the article takes a qualitative, comparative approach, using document studies, policy analyses and institutional-level investigations. The article finds that, although the India National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 initiative appears to be the ‘boldest’ in South Asia, there are still wider, uneven implementation issues. There are issues in Bangladesh related to accreditation and digital governance, but the presence of political patronage and regulatory restrictions. There appears in Sri Lanka a stable regime, albeit heavily centralised, with enduring quality assurance and sluggish responsiveness in terms of innovations. The article culminates with the presentation of a governance architecture framework specifically designed and contextualised in South Asia, focusing on autonomy in the perspective of accountability, autonomous regulatory bodies, student and faculty performance credentials in terms of accreditation, digital governance and regional linkage and networking.