Why Bangladeshi Higher Educational Institutions Should Introduce Community Economic Development as a New Field of Study: Some Suggestions

Community Economic Development (CED) is a popular field of study in the top North American universities. But, this field of study is completely absent in Bangladesh, even not a single course has been found in their course curricula based on their websites. Some courses are under development studies but those are insufficient compared to the required courses offered in foreign universities. Interestingly, CED approach is a countrywide approach practiced by NGOs, specialized bank and corporate houses of Bangladesh. CED approach is highly associated with sustainable development by fulfilling numerous goals successfully. The study aims at to develop urgency of the concerned stakeholders of the higher educational institutions of Bangladesh to design, implement and execute program and courses on CED in order to make the country sustainable and in doing so the paper showed CED professions in Bangladesh and in the world, which considered pragmatic in CED course at the university level. The study considered different CED study programs and courses offered by reputed universities of the world including reasons behind introducing the program in their course curriculum and expected benefits derived from the courses. The paper finally suggests ways of implementing it at the university level of Bangladesh. The study makes the concerned stakeholders aware about CED programs and courses for successful development, implementation and execution.