INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 8, ISSUE 12, DECEMBER 2019 ISSN 2277-8616

Higher Education System In India:

Challenges And Opportunities
Srimathi H, Krishnamoorthy A

Abstract:— In the last three decades, the higher education system in India has grown incredibly and contributed towards nation building. As the country
is likely to become the world‘s largest workforce, there is a deep level of nervousness within India to sustain its growth due to the rise of gig economy
and technology disruption. The expectation of capturing a high share of global knowledge workforce will be fulfilled only if there is a focused quality
higher education benchmarked at international standards. The sound knowledge of predictable forecast with a dynamic swift of strategic planning is
necessary to address the multiple challenges. Mere drafts with past success may not be helpful. The higher education must evolve with balanced skill
and knowledge to surge ahead of the curve of ever rising domestic and global demand. The study analyzed the present higher education scenario of the
country, the way forward with the perspective of global employment.

Index Terms:— Inter disciplinary, Technology Disruption, Gig Economy, Quality Higher Education, Skill Development
——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION The expectations are to minimize the present challenges and

The Indian higher education system is viewed as a sun rising divert them as opportunities during such multifold expansion.
sector due to the growing population. Both central and state
governments share a concurrent responsibility towards
inclusive and sustainable development of higher education.
The expectations can be achieved only when the knowledge
workforce is accelerated towards global economy with
interdisciplinary approach as shown in Figure 1 (―The future of
Indian Higher Education‖, 2012). The universities are broken
into discipline themed schools, where in the ‗inter‘ emphasizes
the importance of relationships among academic and
collaborative approach across nations. The paper
demonstrates the present challenges and opportunities of
Indian higher education in inter disciplinary era.

2 INDIAN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM

The Indian higher education system is huge and complex with
the presence of different types of universities and colleges. As
per the annual All India survey of higher education (AISHE,
2018), there are totally 49964 institutions categorized as 903
universities, 10011 stand alone institutions and 39050
colleges. The total Enrollment of higher education is 36.6 Fig 1 The predicted peak of Indian Higher education in 21st
million students with Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 25.8 %. century (Source: IndoGenius, 2012)
The undergraduate programme (29.06 million) has high intake
with distributed enrollment in each faculty of discipline as arts The number of colleges and universities in rural area is 60.48
& humanities (36.4%), science (17.1%) followed by equal % and 47 % respectively. However, there is a large disparity in
share in Engineering & Commerce (14.1%). The GER of enrollment ratio between rural and urban population. The drop-
higher secondary schools is 62.5 % with approximate outs are high in rural population due to family circumstances
enrollment of 13.5 million students per year. The country is and lack of support. Most of the rural institutions are also failed
expected to meet higher education GER as 30% by 2020, with to impart quality higher education due to faculty shortage, poor
the accounted growth of 7% in the last decade. Still there will infrastructure and limited funding. There is also a wide
be a huge qualified higher secondary school students, will find disparity in gender and community distribution of rural and
difficulty in higher education access (Sharma, 2018). The urban. As per the human development index report (2018), the
current tertiary education enrollment will get expanded five country move upward towards education. However, the
times in the coming years and expect the expansion of women empowerment to be highly concentrated as there is a
institutional capacity with three times (―India‘s Education sluggish improvement in gender development index. Also,
Policy‖, 2018). there is a need of improving public expenditure on socio-
economic development including education sector. The
———————————————
reservation policies improve the community participation; still it
requires additional attention to achieve inclusive growth
• Srimathi H, Professor & Assistant Director, Directorate of
Admissions, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai,
India. E-mail: [email protected]
3 GOVERNANCE AND PRIVATIZATION
• Krishnamoorthy A, Professor & Associate Dean, Department of The institutions are overregulated with the presence of more
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, SASTRA Deemed than 15 councils at the federal level, in addition to the state
University, Thanjavur, E-mail: [email protected] governance for state level universities and colleges.
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Complexities exist in the procedures and processes of

approval, affiliation, academic and accreditation of higher
education system (Agarwal, 2006). Even with such stringent
processes, the regulatory authorities are not able to
completely control fake universities. The quality of higher
education is also doubted compared with international
standards. There was a realization that the University Grants
Commission (UGC), an apex body, to be reorganized by
including members from other councils to cater the emerging
needs. The number of affiliating universities is only 285, which
increase the administrative workload pertaining to approval,
intake, syllabus revamp, faculty recruitment, examination and
award of degree. The affiliated colleges are limited or nil
participation in university academic reforms including
curriculum revision. They just impart knowledge dissemination
and skill based training are offered as value additions by few
selected institutions. There is a disparity in scope of
educational objectives and curriculum standards of teaching
learning process as the accreditation bodies and levels are
different for technical programmes offered by universities and Fig 2. Twenty First century economy skill (source : World
affiliated colleges. The numbers of accredited institutions is Economic Forum, 2015)
also not encouraging when compared with dense of
institutions. The harmonization of accreditation standards and As the Indian economy needs much more skilled workforce
the categorized ranking framework improves the public than ever, it is crucial to connect skills and higher education
awareness on quality. The number of privately managed that are relevant to aspirations of the society (Future of Jobs,
institutions is expanding with 343 universities and approximate 2016). The boom in information technology increased the
count of 30459 colleges. The declining expenditure in public demand for technical courses in the last few decades.
sector and the introduction of self-financing courses in However, the trend is changing, leaving unfilled vacancies in
government institutions attributed the growth of private technical education due to supply-demand ratio and poor
participation. However, there are huge entry barriers for new employability of qualifying students. The gig economy industry
private institutions, obtaining university status and operating expects blend of domain knowledge in science, technology,
with for-profit education mode. There is a negligence of growth social science, analytics and finance as no discipline is self-
of private sector in policy reforms, when their present share is contained (―New Vision for Education‖, 2015). The renowned
increasing trend. The research grants are also considerably institutions around the world offer flexible choice based inter-
less to private institutions compared to government disciplinary courses. The Indian institutions are also gearing
institutions. The government should identify and encourage towards inter-disciplinary experiential active learning (IDEAL),
potential private players to participate in the nation where candidates can design their own curriculum of choice
development (―Indian higher education sector opportunities‖, with majors, minors and specialization as shown in Fig 3. The
2012). graduates are provided with bundle of industry ready skills
through industry and university collaborations. The adoption of
4 SKILL DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION interdisciplinary approach in SRMIST as given in Fig. 4.
The detailed study on ―Skilling India, No time to Loss‖ (2018)
estimated that from year 2022, every month nearly 1.25 million
Indian workers (Age 15-29) will newly join the workforce. The
automation of industry using artificial intelligence and robotics
make many jobs as vulnerable and redundant. The global gig
economy will require a sophisticated workers and innovators
to meet short duration jobs with technologically advanced skill
sets (Wadhawan, 2018). The lack of stability in career
progression will have deep implication on higher education,
where the large number of manpower to be trained with 21st
century economy skill (see Figure 2).

Fig 3. The inter-disciplinary curriculum to face gig economy

challenges

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Fig. 5. The importance of Industry-Institute-International

research alliance

6 FOREIGN COLLABORATIONS AND STUDENT MOBILITY

As per (AISHE, 2018) There are only fewer foreign students
Fig. 4. IDEAL implementation in Engineering Degree
enrolled in India (46,144) from neighboring third national
(Source: srmuniv.ac.in, 2018)
countries compared to large out-bound of Indian students
(553440) to developed countries. The outflow is mainly for
The availability of abundant knowledge resources through
post graduate studies, which is a matter of serious concern
highly penetrated internet throws unique challenges to
with respect to brain drain and revenue loss. In order to attract
institutions to make their system open, flexible and relevant.
foreign nationals, the quality of higher education, reforms in
Though the government has launched massive open online
admission policies and administration procedures need a lot of
courses (MOOC) and encouraging towards blended learning,
attention. The presence of foreign institutions in the form of
there is no clear regulatory framework to recognize the online
new institutions and branch campuses are still in draft stage
education on par with formal traditional education. The present
with permission to only top ranked institutions (Mini, 2017).
enrollment in distance education constitutes 11 % of total
Also, there is a question on permitting for-profit foreign
enrollment. The distance education mode still struggles with
institutions, while the private institutions are prohibited for the
quality content, examination system and recognition in
same. As the potential growth is not gone unnoticed, there are
employment opportunities. However, the rise of continuous
quite a good foreign institutions have collaboration with Indian
learning in terms of skilling, re-skilling and up-skilling
partners to offer semester abroad programmes, internships,
necessitated the need of open educational resources in mass.
dual and twinning programmes (Bhushan, 2006).
5 RESEARCH AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATIONS
7 RECENT GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES
The country is aspiring to become dominant in global economy
Government policies have a direct and broad effect on
with knowledge workforce, but a mere 0.5 % enrollment in
institutions. Many of the recent initiatives in policy and
research would not be sufficient. This has great impact in
implementation mark a transition in the field, though there is a
many ways including new innovations, quality teaching and
long way to go.
socio-economic development. The absence of world rankings
 The annual web based AISHE covers data collection on
in top positions is viewed as India‘s underperformance in
domestic/ international enrollment, programmes offered,
higher education (Pushkar, 2013). The academia-industry
teacher qualification / ratio, infrastructure and budget &
collaboration is quite limited and face challenges in keeping
finance. The survey helps to find out several educational
curriculum future oriented. However, the Academia-Industry-
indicators including GER and gender parity and institution
Research connectivity has unique benefits to ensure high
density and serve as base for educational reforms.
quality teaching, producing industry-ready professionals and
 The Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) focuses
research innovations to meet community development (see
un-served areas to promote access, equity and quality mass
Fig. 5).
education.
 UGC has initiated to offer online courses leading to the
award of degree and diploma to improve the country‘s GER.
The institutions are recommended to introduce skill based
curriculum, entrepreneurship training and startup initiatives.

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 The Unnath bharath abhiyan focuses on transforming higher

education innovations in rural development and to help
inclusive growth.
 The mandate of Ph.D qualification, compulsory one month
induction of newly recruited faculty, annual refresher
programme using MOOC platform, career advancement
scheme using academic performance indicators,
international collaborations through global initiative of
academic networks (GYAN) and several other schemes are
expected to improve the teachers and teaching quality.
 The Atal innovation ranking focus on higher education
institutions to promote and nurture innovation culture in the
academic environment.
 The annual National Institutional ranking framework was
Fig. 6. Nation Building – Youth Empowerment through 5Es
introduced to create awareness about global ranking along
and GPPI network
with India-centric parameters such as inclusiveness and
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