practice and constructivist theory. There is a vision for a four-stranded reform architecture, with policy,

pedagogy, infrastructure, and teacher professional development to create an equitable competency-based

system of assessment. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge on education reform within

developing contexts by offering a data-driven and scalable pathway towards system change in assessment.

Education Policy, Inclusive Education, Assessment Design.

Assessment is fundamental to ensuring quality, motivating learners, and credentialing in higher education. In

Bangladesh, tertiary institutions have traditionally depended on examination-driven, summative types of

assessments with colonial origins. This creates challenges for equity, alignment of skills, and international

that, inequalities between public and private universities in terms of infrastructure, staff capacity development,

and institutional leadership have propelled these differences (Sarkar & Hossain, 2018). This research is based

on the conviction that access to quality assessment on a level playing field is not just needed for academic

integrity but also for universal social mobility and national development.

This paper will investigate the prevailing evaluation practice in Bangladesh’s higher education, determine

structural and pedagogical shortcomings, and suggest an evidence-informed, context-responsive reform

agenda. This project addresses a large literature gap by offering empirical evidence on the dialectic between

local interests and global trends in education testing. By concentrating on public and private universities, the

research presents a comparative strategy that addresses national policy and institutional practice. The

suggested model emphasizes bringing together policy alignment, pedagogical innovation, capacity building,

education reform discusses the limitations of conventional, memory-based assessment systems and their

inability to promote critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving capabilities (Kabir, 2016; Bryan &

Clegg, 2019). Scholars stress that Bangladesh’s education system continues to lack systemic quality assurance

mechanisms and academic auditing (Mohsin & Kamal, 2012), leading to variable standards among institutions.

Comparative Singapore and Malaysia models show the successful operation of continuous assessment,

stakeholder feedback systems, and strategic use of digital technologies (Sultana &et al, 2020). The informing

theory for the study is constructivist theory, which supports learner-centered teaching and authentic practice in

assessment. Constructivist theory supports formative assessment, application in real life, and skill alignment to

the needs of the labour market (Rami, 2024). The literature also promotes the utilization of culturally localized

reform measures that take into consideration socio-economic and technological differences, making reform not

This paradigm harmonizes constructivist theory of learning and empirical evidence from mixed methods

research to propose a competency-oriented, context-driven reform of the tertiary examination system of

Bangladesh.

A mixed-methods approach (Creswell & et al, 2017) was adopted to combine the strengths of qualitative and

quantitative approaches:

We contrasted the syllabus and examination regulations of 12 private and public universities for the period

We conducted 75 semi-structured interviews:

2. 20 university administrators

3. 15 students from five universities

Problems discussed included perceived fairness, congruence with learning outcomes, the problem of

implementation, and recommendations for change.

Data analysis integrated qualitative and quantitative methods to provide a multidimensional snapshot of the

current evaluation landscape in Bangladeshi tertiary education.

Quantitative data, largely from question papers and curriculum analysis, were entered into SPSS for

descriptive statistical analysis. Key indicators were the proportion of formative to summative assessment, the

were: “Inclusivity of assessment,” “Faculty training needs,” “Digital readiness,” and “Perceived fairness.”

Four dominant themes were determined by thematic analysis:

1. Pedagogical conservatism

2. Structural capacity gaps

3. Institutional resistance to change

4. Equity and digital divide issues

To triangulate findings, document analysis results were also compared with stakeholder attitudes. For instance,

while 65% of the respondents reported an absence of formative feedback in their programs, only 12% of the

syllabi analyzed explicitly included such components, indicating a gap between perceived needs and

institutional priorities.

These analyses provided the empirical foundation for the reform framework discussed in “Reform

Framework”, linking evidence to practical interventions.

The Research findings establish colossal structural, pedagogical, and contextual problems in existing