A draft of the amended Private University Act is to be placed before a cabinet meeting for approval soon, education adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman said Wednesday, reports bdnews24.com.

After a meeting of the Bangladesh-National Commission for Unesco at the secretariat, the adviser told reporters that drafting of the act, which would now be passed as an ordinance, had reached the final stage.

The government took initiatives to amend the law, passed in 1992 to open private universities, in an effort to improve the quality of higher education and remove irregularities in the private educational institutions.

"We will be lagging behind in the age of globalisation if we cannot improve our education system," the adviser said.

Explaining the condition of the quality of education, Zillur said there were five posts for Bangladesh in the UNESCO headquarters, but three of them had been lying vacant for 23 years as qualified candidates were not available.

The employees at the UNESCO headquarters need to know French. The government posted advertisements for qualified candidates for the post, the adviser said.

On the quality of education in private universities, the adviser said that the government tried to improve the quality of education in such institutions and planned to amend the ordinance so that educational institutions did not turn into businesses, he added.

Coaching centres will be brought under the purview of the ordinance, Zillur said.