Higher Education & Emerging Challenges in India

Abstract

Education is the most effective tool for the progress and prosperity of the nation. It can enable its country men to overcome poverty and other evils. But today higher education in India is facing many challenges. The persons with ulterior motives have entered this arena and their first and foremost consideration is to mint money anyhow. Such people do not have any academicians’ temperament and they do not view teaching as a sacred profession.  Besides, burdensome curriculum, mindless growth of educational institutions, lack of job oriented courses and quality education, corruption etc. have put a question mark against the quality of higher education in India. If India has to counter the international challenges, then it has to strive for value addition and out of box ideas. The higher education is facing many challenges such as poor quality of teachers and infrastructure, high fees, lack of values, low rates of enrolment, unequal access, and lack of relevance. The sky high charges of private education have hit the poor most. The higher education system of India also has to be brought at par with the developed countries. Besides, education has to cater to the needs of the society. Over a long period of time no sincere effort has been made to know the real condition of Indian higher education. The last concerted and comprehensive effort was the constitution of D.S. Kothari Commission in 1965. Today higher education has to fulfil the specific needs of globalized economy while being responsive to local needs. There has to be continuous quality improvement despite having the limitations of financial and human resources. Innovative and creative activities have to be undertaken to improve versatile functions of university operation. New practices such as e-administration, e-delivery, e-learning, including virtual mobility and virtual internship programmes have to be  introduced  as much as possible.