Dhaka: An agreement was signed between the University Grants Commission (UGC) and 27 universities at UGC auditorium on Tuesday.

Twenty seven universities, including 11 public universities and 16 private universities, signed the agreement with the UGC for establishing quality assurance mechanism in their respective institutions.

Estimated expenditure for the initiative under the Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) has been fixed at Tk 44 crore, said in a press release of UGC.

HEQEP has been implemented by UGC with assistances from World Bank (WB).

UGC chairman Professor Abdul Mannan was present on the occasion as the chief guest.

The UGC chairman in his speech observed that huge expansion of higher education has taken place in the country, and that the main challenge for the comings days is to maintain quality education.

Vice chancellors of public and private universities and officials of UGC and WB were present on the occasion.