READINESS ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITY IN BANGLADESH FOR EDUCATION 4.0: A CASE STUDY OF SHAHJALAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – SYLHET, BANGLADESH
In order to get the benefits of Industry 4.0 (4ir) we need the graduates who are able to face the challenges of 4ir. As the universities are the main sources of producing graduates, they should produce adaptable graduates of 4ir. The 4ir demands such a system of higher education where each and every stakeholders especially educators and learners should be connected in a globalized automated environment, networked, virtualized and flexible. In the paradigm of 4ir learners should learn to learn the sources of learning how to build knowledge and skills within the process of teaching –learning. The study aims to identify the dimensions of E4.0 corresponding to 4ir and to assess the readiness of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) is one of 50 public universities of Bangladesh. At present there are 28 disciplines in six schools of studies in SUST and among them 20 departments have been selected for the study based on minimum 10 years of establishment. The assessment has been focused on four aspects mainly curriculum, teacher (faculty), intuitional qualification and logistic supports in terms of E4.0. In conducting the study data from collected 120 teachers and graduate students with a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was five point scales. The collected data was analyzed with SPSS and mainly frequency in each dimension was found and finally factor analysis was done to find the factors affecting E4.0. The frequency distribution showed that Robotic Process Automation aspects ranked first following cloud computing, data analytics, IoT, AI, and BCT. The factor analysis showed that seventeen aspects have been considered as important and the top most five aspects are fees and rewards, data as a service, software as a service, AI extraction and user device.