Bangladesh economy has been transforming towards a market-based economy from a state-dominated centrally planned economy since the early 1980s, the pace of transformation has been slow though. The aim of this article is to see how the higher education system responds to the changes in the structure of the economy. The article argues that the higher education system in general in a transitional economy is responsive to the changes in the structure of the economy. The article, however, also argues that the changes in higher education system, especially in curriculum, would not follow a linear unidirectional trajectory. This article is built on a small-scope empirical study on three selected social science disciplines of Dhaka University to see whether and how they responded to the demand of the growing labour market in terms of changes they introduced in curriculum in the last 20 years. Having analyzed skill and knowledge demand by the banking and telecommunication sectors--the two major sources of private sector employment for educated workforce in recent years--the article makes an effort to track what kind of changes the three selected disciplines under the Faculty of Social Science of Dhaka University have made in their respective curriculum in response to the demand of the major private sector employers. The article finds that Public Administration and Economics Departments of the Dhaka University show high and low responsiveness to business sector demand, respectively. While Sociology Department did not respond to business sector demand, rather it has responded to NGO sector demand. Among these three departments, Public Administration is found to have a low degree of compatibility to business sector needs. The article concludes that the Faculty of Social Science of Dhaka University has been slow and hesitant to respond to emerging needs of the dominant business sector employers; it is mainly because of the negative attitude towards private sector in the academia and lack of proper direction of private sector development.