Indian Higher Education: challenges and opportunities

1. Dr. Jagannath K. Dange
Department of Education
Kuvempu University
Shankaraghatta
Dist: Shimoga,
Karnataka
jkdange@gmail.com
http://jkdange.blogspot.com

2.  What is Higher Education.
 Aims of University Education
 Status of Indian Higher Education
 Problems and Weaknesses of Higher Education
 Suggestions for Improvement.
 Opportunities for Higher Education

3. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar [Bombay Legislative Council
Debate, 27th July, 1927],
 "The University is a machinery whereby educational
facilities are provided to all those who are intellectually
capable of using those facilities to the best advantage but
who cannot avail themselves of those facilities for want of
funds or for other handicaps in life.
 The people in university education shape the behaviour, minds, and
the social and human values of the student community.
 Therefore, the advantage of university education is that it works out the
solutions of economic and social problems.

4.  Dr. S. Radhakrishnan also said that the function of the universities is
not merely to send out technically skilled and professionally
competent men, but it is their duty to produce in them the quality of
compassion, the quality which enables the individuals to treat one
another in a truly democratic spirit. (Convocation Address to Karnataka
University on 26 October, 1953).
As Mentioned in 'UNESCO.
 "Education should provide the skills for
 "learning to know,
 learning to live together;
 learning to do and
 learning to be".

5.  Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while delivering a speech at the
special convocation of the Allahabad University on December
13, 1947 said:
 "A university stands for humanism for tolerance, for reason, for
progress, for the adventure of ideas and for the search for
truth.
 If the universities discharge their duty adequately, then it is
well with the nation and the people.
 But if the temple of learning itself becomes a home of narrow
bigotry and petty objectives, how then will the nation prosper
or people grow in stature?"

6. Higher Education
 Primary objectives: such as employability, enhancing the
earning potential, seeking and advancing knowledge and wisdom,
research and experimentation.
 Secondary objectives: like attaining mental and spiritual
growth, engaging in quest for the unknown, facilitating better
lifestyle, and developing scientific outlook.

21. Present Status
 At the time of independence we had only 20 universities and 695
colleges but today we have 799 universities where as colleges have
increased to more than 39,091, thus putting huge pressure on the
university administration.
 Similarly, the student enrolment of 3,97,000 (girls 43,000) in 1950 has
surged to 20.00,000 (girls 46%).
 Out of total colleges, 37% belong to Arts and Humanities,
Commerce and Management, 16% Engineering and Technology,
4% Education, 4% Medicine, 2% Law, 0.5% Agriculture, 0.1 %
Veterinary and 1% others.

22.  The number of graduates coming out of technical college was slightly
over 7,00,000. However, 75% of technical graduate and more than
85% of general graduates are unemployable by India’s high-growth
industries, including information technology.
India's one of the major wealth is youth (18-40 years of age) which
presently stands at almost 80 crore, 62% of the total population (127
crore, male 65.6 crore and female 61.4 crore).
Indian higher education system is third largest in the world.

23.  The present ratio of student: teacher in the country is almost
20:1, colleges having about 4, 21,000 teachers and universities
79,000.
 More than 25% colleges' and almost 35% universities' teaching
positions nationwide are vacant.
 Similarly, in IT, IIT, IMM etc ca. 40% faculty positions are vacant.
Out of 20 lakh students, 86% remain to be graduates, 12% acquire
maters degree, one per cent PhD and one per cent
diplomas/certificates.

24. Bharat Ratna
awardee scientist
CNR Rao said that
90% of the
universities in India
have “outdated
curriculum”. Rao
said, speaking at the
Rashtrapati Bhawan.

25. New Dimensions in Higher Education
Education is dynamic process which changes from time to
time.
In the present era it is very essential to know the changes
which happened in the higher education in general and
teacher education in particular.
Unless we understand the changes, it would be difficult to
consider the dimensions for the 21st century higher education
and plan for the expectations for the century.
Hence there is a dire need to consider the new dimensions for
the higher education.

26. The changes which can be considered for framing new
dimensions are,
 Growth in the Population,
 Knowledge Expansion,
 Technology Revolution,
 Change in the value pattern,
 new theories and methods,
 change in methods of teaching,
 Global competition,
 Redressal of Inequality and
 sustainable development.

27.  The challenge of numbers
 The challenge of quality
 The challenge of relevance
 The challenge of access
 The challenge of cost

29. Some of the Problems and Weaknesses of Higher Education.
The present scenario reflects serious weakness of our higher education system as follows:
 Examination reforms have been miserably slow paced.
 Curricular reforms and pedagogic reforms are not coping with the rate of advancement of
knowledge.
 Lack of involvement of teachers, administrators in system.
 Admission of undeserving students.
 Evil practice of collecting capitation fee for admission.
 Caste, Community or Money base opportunities of teachers.
 Widespread indiscipline among teachers.
 Poor quality of teaching.
 Negative attitude towards research among college teachers.
 The evaluation system is qualitatively poor and corrupt.
 Conduct of examinations has become too costly, hazardous and dangerous.
 Poor finances to colleges and universities resulting in inadequate facilities to students and
teachers.
 Political interference in the autonomy of higher education.
 Poor leadership at higher levels of administration both in colleges and universities.

30. Higher Education Summit 2013; Higher Education in India: Vision 2030
the FICCI Higher Education Committee has endeavored to create the 'Vision 2030' for
Higher Education in India.
The Vision is aspirational and futuristic, looking at India as a globally dominant
economy, with a high quality higher education sector that leads and fulfills the needs
of society.
By 2030, India will be amongst the youngest nations in the world.
With nearly 140 million people in the college-going age group, one in every four
graduates in the world will be a product of the Indian higher education system.
By 2030, the already existing challenges for Indian higher education – access, equity and
quality – will only be greatly exacerbated unless we significantly transform our higher
education model.

32. Shifting role of the Teachers in present scenario
 Encourage Thinking:
 The information Provider:
 The Role Model:
 Teachers as a Facilitator:
 Teacher as a Participant in the Learners Efforts:
 Teacher to Find his Own Teaching Style:
 Recognize Himself as a Professional:
 Be Sensitivity to Student's Needs and Problems:

33. Suggestions
 Parents, administrators, politicians, reformers, planners and
educationists should be fully involved in the development of education
at all levels.
 Enhancing the quality of Teaching, Learning and Evaluation methods.
 Encouraging innovations in practical teaching, enhancing the
productivity of teachers.
 Focus on continuous development of faculty.
 Knowledge alliances (Universities/colleges with 'Potential for
Excellence' to support the academic growth and development of
developing institutions)
 Evolving and implementing of continuous quality enhancement
strategies.
 Implementation of internal quality assurance systems.
 Promotion of inter- disciplinary teaching and research.

34. Opportunities in Higher Education
• Indian higher education system is growing very fast irrespective of various challenges but
there is no reason that these Challenges cannot be overcome. With the help of new-age
learning tools, it is easy for country like India to overcome these problems and bring a
paradigm shift in the country’s higher education sector. With such a vibrant country with
huge population properly educated, the possibilities are endless. If knowledge is imparted
using advanced digital teaching and learning tools.
• India is a large country, with an estimated population of young people aged between 18
to 23 years to be around 150 millions. The sheer size of the market offers huge
opportunities for development of the higher education sector in India.
• India now boasts of having more than 35,000 colleges and 799 universities, which has been
quite a remarkable growth during the last seven decades. India the 3rd largest educational
system in the world.
• Therefore, higher Education sector has now been identified as one of the promising areas
for private and foreign investments. It offers immense investment opportunities in both
non-regulated and regulated segments .

35. • There are opportunities for strategic engagement and capacity building in higher
education leadership and management at the state level. There are opportunities for India
to collaboration at national and international level on areas of systemic reform, including
quality assurance, international credit recognition, and unified national qualifications
framework.
• Equality of educational opportunity in higher education is considered essential because
higher education is a powerful tool for reducing or eliminating income and wealth
disparities. The idea of equalising educational opportunities also lies in the fact that “the
ability to profit by higher education is spread among all classes of people.
• The need to enhance the employability of graduates is presenting entry points for
collaboration in enterprise education and entrepreneurship, links with industry, research
skills and the wide range of transferable skills, including English. The emerging interest in
Indian higher education institutions in the vocational skills market provides areas for
potential engagement with international partners.

36. Digital India

52.  Library consortia
 The word consortia is originated from Latin root word Consor which
means sharing, partner, etc,
 consortia means group of two or more organization which have a
common goal and help to each other in order to achieving their
common objectives.
 Due to emergence of e-resources, library consortia are becoming
a most useful in academic libraries for sharing of resources and
services.
 In India many library consortia are working for giving better and
advanced service to user community such as INDEST-AICTE, UGC-
INFONET, FORSA, CSIR, CeRA, IIM, HELINET, etc.
 Open consortia
 The open consortia are a type of consortia that give the freedom to
participate to join and leave consortia.

53.  Library consortia in India
 INDEST (Indian National Digital Library of Engineering, Sciences and
Technology)
 It was set up by the ministry of MHRD in 2003 on the recommendations of
expert group. The consortia were renamed as INDEST-AICTE consortia in 2005.
The headquarters of consortia is IIT Delhi.
 INDEST-AICTE consortia are Asia largest consortia which have 1235
members. The consortia subscribe to over 12,000 electronic journals from a
number of publishers and aggregators such as ABI inform, ACM Digital library
EBSCO, Science Direct, Emerald Management Extra, MathScinet, Scopus and
Web of Science etc.
 IIM Library Consortia
 The IIM consortia are a major initiative of librarians of IIM to connect IIM
libraries in order to share their resources. IIM consortia have four major
resources such as Wiley, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Sage. Presently
consortia have 13members.

54.  UGC-INFONET
 The UGC-INFONET digital library consortia are major initiative of
UGC to bring qualitative change in higher education in India. It was
launched by the former president Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam in 2003.
 The consortia provide the free access of scholarly journals and
database in all field and discipline. The consortia provides the
current as well as archival access to more than 7500+ core and peer-
reviewed journals and 10 bibliographic database from 26
publishers and aggregators such as Emerald, Nature, Project Muse,
Taylor and Francis, JCCC, Web of Science etc. the consortium have
209 members in different fields.
 HELINET (Health Science Library & Information Network)
 It was launched by Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences
in 2003. It is first kinds of library network in India in the field of medical
that promote the share of resources among medical college. The
consortia subscribe the 600+ core international e-journals, 2000+ E-
BOOKS, 1500+ videos and database.

55. Dr. Jagannath K. Dange
Department of Education
Kuvempu University
Shankaraghatta
Dist: Shimoga,
Karnataka
jkdange@gmail.com
http://jkdange.blogspot.com