Current status of higher education in India that necesiated a new education policy
Dr. N. Prabhudev
Former Vice Chancellor Bangalore University-
Current status of higher education in India which necessitated a new education policy in 2020!
India is a great nation. I am proud to be an Indian.
Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them- William Shakespeare!
A closer look at the pros and cons of the education system of India will reveal one startling fact. That despite all sorts of challenges, it continues to flourish and churn out some of the exceptional brains of the world.
At the same time, it fails miserably in providing ample training and direction for students to develop and benefit from their inborn skills.
India is home to some of the best brains in the world
・36% of scientists of NASA
・36% of employee of Microsoft
・38% of the medical doctors in USA
・28% of employee of IBM
・10% of programmer all of the world
Nearly a million scientists and engineers of Indian origin reside in the US alone.
Many are happy just being good!
Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have a great education system because we believe that we have a good education system! Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. To be a great we first we must accept that we are not great! We need to inculcate the burning desire to be great!
The history of our nation may not always have charted a linear trajectory to greatness. Unity in diversity is our heart and soul. We shall nurture and strengthen our cultural heritage and the human values.
The future of this country is in the hands of younger generation. Ethics, truth and honesty are the bed rock of a nation and society. I urge you all to consider making ethical behavior as part and parcel of your life irrespective of your immediate environment.
Are we a great nation- yes we were! Not yet now!
India is not the greatest country in the world. We forget that we must work for those things we hold dear. India succumbed to foreign rule so often! Because despite having all the natural resources, the brains, the infrastructure, the democracy, even after 75 years of our independence we are still a third world developing country and not a developed one.
We are 2nd in population, 131st in Human Development, 168th in literacy, 134th in Global Youth development, 41st in Competitiveness, 66th in Quality of life, 123rd in Economic Freedom, 122 in per capita GDP, 66th in global innovation, 122nd in Happiness.
We are Number One in the world for searching — How to get a visa for USA!
India is not even a moderately great country today, and there is no chance for us to be great in the future as well. We are morally corrupt, self centered, treat our nation as a large dust bin and we like the rule of law only if it gets applied on ‘others’.
Presently our university education system is contributing 3 million graduates and post graduates every year. Students seeking employment after completion of 10th class and 10+2 are around 7 million per year. Thus nearly 10 million youth are injected into the employment market every year. At present India has six hundred and forty million — approx 60 crores, youth under the age of 25 yrs.
Education in India has become a source of business
Let’s talk some facts here…
Engineering colleges have been springing up like wild mushrooms in India in the last few years. Their number has gone up from a not too modest 1,511 colleges in 2006–07 to an astoundingly high 3,345 in 2014–15.
Approximately 1.5 million engineers are being graduated each year from these engineering colleges.
That’s not it, about 25–33% of these engineers do not get a job at all. And the fortunate ones that get a job, their pay scale is well below their technical qualification because there are less demand and more supply. Many are working in jobs that do not require their qualification!
Why is this happening? Majority of them are unemployable!
Well, one reason is that they are not getting the industry level exposure, just the bookish knowledge and a degree.
Current Issues in Education in India
Under funding of education — only 4% of GDP is spent on education as against recommended 6%.
Gross Enrolment Rate of only 25% — absence of critical mass of academic quality
Lack of Infrastructure facilities
Teacher shortage and teacher absenteeism
Poor Accreditation issues
Absence of innovations in curricula design
Compromise of Quality of education at every stage
General education itself has become so profitable a business that quality is lost in the increase of quantity of professional institutions and politicization adding fuel to the fire of spoil system.
In India we have 1005 Universities- we need some 2000. We have 45000 colleges- we need a million colleges.
Paradoxically there is a strong feeling that there should only be 50 top class universities rather than graduate factories!
We churn out millions of graduates seeking jobs in vain due to lack of employability, lack of communication skills and entrepreneurship qualities.
Some of the major problems currently faced by the higher education system in India include:
· a severely fragmented higher educational ecosystem;
· less or no emphasis on the development of cognitive skills and learning outcomes;
· a rigid separation of disciplines,
· limited access
· limited teacher and institutional autonomy;
· inadequate mechanisms for merit-based career management and progression of faculty
· lesser or no emphasis on research at most universities and colleges, and lack of competitive peer-reviewed research funding across disciplines
· an ineffective regulatory system;
· Large number of affiliating universities resulting in low standards of undergraduate education.
Students getting first-class getting 80% and above has doubled since the late 1990s!
If the proportion of students getting first-class degrees has doubled since the late 1990s.
Has it made any difference to those who get them?
Has it made their un-employability any less! A short answer is NO!
If more people are getting top grades, only it moves up the cutoff marks!!
Employers are now using “contextualized” approaches. They are using data to look at applicants’ backgrounds — so that someone with not so good grades from a tough school might be seen as higher achieving than someone with high grades from a wealthy background or an institution with not so good accreditation rates!
The privatization of education has started the grade inflation. The current rise in grades has been linked to universities charging higher fees — and the need to compete with other universities to show they are delivering value for money.
The world and India are producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop?
Scientists who attain a PhD are rightly proud — they have gained entry to an academic elite. But it is not as elite as it once was. The number of science doctorates earned each year grew by nearly 40% between 1998 and 2008, to some 34,000.
The growth shows no sign of slowing: most countries are building up their higher-education systems because they see educated workers as a key to economic growth. But in much of the world, science PhD graduates may never get a chance to take full advantage of their qualifications.
Supply has outstripped demand and, although few PhD holders end up unemployed, it is not clear that spending years securing this high-level qualification is worth it for a job as a high-school teacher.
In India and China the quantity outstrips the quality!
Let us look at Basic higher education!
Hither- to the policy seems to be ‘Some education is better than No education!
The quality of most higher education institutions in India is abysmal. Let me elaborate on this. In terms of quantity the expansion of higher education has been impressive. At the time of Independence, we had about 20 universities and fewer than 500 colleges in the whole country.
In 2014–15 there were 760 universities and more than 38,000 colleges, catering to about 34 million students. But the expansion in quantity has often been at the expense of quality.
As on August 2021 there are 1005 universities and colleges — 51,649! The number of teaching staff to 14.16 lakhs.
Despite this there is extreme faculty shortage, apart from stark deficiencies in the matters of library books, laboratory facilities, computers and other devices, broadband internet, classrooms and buildings, etc. As much as 30 to 50% of faculty positions are vacant in many institutions. Many faculty posts are filled by under-qualified “temporary” recruits.
Corruption and clout play the major roles in faculty selections!
There is massification of education at the cost of quality!
The marked deterioration in standards of teaching and conduct of examinations is a matter of great concern. We are producing a large number of mere pass outs not employable even in India.
India’s student population in higher education grew by 800,000 in 2018–19 as against the previous year taking the absolute number of such students to 40 million.
37% Arts
19% science
18% commerce and management
16% engineering and technology
10% miscellaneous courses
Universities who got accredited by the NAAC- only 32 per cent could get ‘A’ grade while another 52 per cent with ‘B’ or grade. The remaining 16 per cent fall in ’c’ grade. NAAC assessment further indicates that 68% of colleges are rated as ‘B’ while another 23% colleges is rated as ‘C’ grade; and only the remaining 9% are ‘A’ grade reflecting the mediocre quality!
The Universities are required to revise the syllabi every three years. No such revision occurs in majority of universities! The revision is required to be brought about in consultation with the industrial captains. There is need for a constant dialogue between the chairmen of Board of studies, Deans of faculties, the Registrars, the Vice Chancellors on one side and the industry captains, czars of corporate houses on the other side..
Every one complains about ‘what’s wrong with Indian Higher Education? It’s time the honchos of the corporate India contribute their wealth to the bilateral growth of the skilled work force and the traditional universities.
Universities should never be run like a Family business.
Higher Education is highly politicized and has become the symbol of political patronage and clout.
Just look at the United States and its economy. No id not have any US fixation! The US has been an undisputed economic leader. One of its great strengths has been its educational system — especially institutes of higher learning, as well as its research laboratories.
Harvard University- 161 Nobel Prize winners.
University of California, Berkeley. Nobel Prize Winners: 110
University of Chicago. Nobel Prize Winners: 100
The best universities in the world are in the USA. Government has nothing to do with them. In India the reverse is happening. Fine institutions of higher education, the universities, the IIMs, IITs are not in the first 100 world rankings because of political and government interference. Even a Professor’s salary is decided by the babus and not his or her merit!
We are not ready for the best of foreign universities like — Stanford, MIT, Berkley, Harvard and Boston. We do not have the infrastructure to accommodate these Top of World Universities.
The foreign universities bill will open the floodgates for substandard 2nd rate foreign universities which will damage our own Institutions They will not bring reputed faculty from their countries instead the steal the available good faculty from our institutions.
As a new millennium unfolds, higher education institutions continue to find themselves in a period of flux and transformation. Corruption and fraud in higher education is a scourge that kills the quality.
It ranges from political capture of universities to favoritism in admissions, diversion of funds, academic dishonesty and sextortion. Higher education regulatory frameworks should promote accountability and anti-corruption measures as part of accreditation and assessment standards.
Academic dishonesty — plagiarism, essay mills and graduate factories, false research, examination fraud, and fake marks cards and degrees — is rampant.
When higher education is infiltrated by corrupt and unethical practices, this threatens the very foundations on which societies are based. ‘Cheating makes exams and degrees worthless, reflects the failed internalization of truth and honesty rules. Corruption and Bribery in licensing and accreditation, frauds in the examination, Plagiarism and Falsification of research processes and results are the glaring ills of the system.
Soft skills, emotional intelligence, teamwork, critical thinking, problem-solving are the skills missing among new graduates rendering them “unemployable”.
Another crucial step will be to revolutionize the classroom and make education learner-centric. The process can be made engaging through micro-learning modules and also by providing curated, personalized and relevant content to learners. Additionally, classroom training at higher education levels can be credit-based with options to choose from a combination of subjects rather than the traditional approach of choosing what their parents did!
the crisis confronting the system: ‘increasing educated
unemployment; weakening of student motivation; increasing unrest and indiscipline on the
campuses; frequent collapse of administration; deterioration of standards; and above all,
the demoralizing effect of the irrelevance and purposelessness of most of what is being
This article published in Edited book ‘Higher Education’, LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Germany, 2011, Pp.93-
103. ISBN: 978–3–8465–1753–6
done.’ While the politicians and policy makers have often spoken about the need for radical
reconstruction of the system, what has been achieved in reality is only moderate reformism
the crisis confronting the system: ‘increasing educated
unemployment; weakening of student motivation; increasing unrest and indiscipline on the
campuses; frequent collapse of administration; deterioration of standards; and above all,
the demoralizing effect of the irrelevance and purposelessness of most of what is being
This article published in Edited book ‘Higher Education’, LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Germany, 2011, Pp.93-
103. ISBN: 978–3–8465–1753–6
done.’ While the politicians and policy makers have often spoken about the need for radical
reconstruction of the system, what has been achieved in reality is only moderate reformism
the crisis confronting the system: ‘increasing educated
unemployment; weakening of student motivation; increasing unrest and indiscipline on the
campuses; frequent collapse of administration; deterioration of standards; and above all,
the demoralizing effect of the irrelevance and purposelessness of most of what is being
This article published in Edited book ‘Higher Education’, LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Germany, 2011, Pp.93-
103. ISBN: 978–3–8465–1753–6
done.’ While the politicians and policy makers have often spoken about the need for radical
reconstruction of the system, what has been achieved in reality is only moderate reformism.
Higher education is in very serious trouble. And its problems are not something that can be solved quickly, or without serious changes to the way that the system works. Today, these problems threaten the long-term viability of an institutions.
There is an increasing trend at colleges and universities of replacing full time teaching and research jobs with part-time and other contingent faculty, who, in addition to being paid meager salaries, do not have the qualifications and do not have time to conduct research.
Does this sound like a system that is working properly?
On one side, student tuition fees is being raised as much as 5 percent a year, restricting access to higher education to only the privileged students. On the other side, professors are being paid poverty wages, severely impacting the quality of the education. Working in academia is not a viable career path for most students, limiting the expansion of knowledge.
Without taking serious steps to resolve these problems, the crisis in higher education is going to continue to grow. This crisis is not only endangering the futures of those working in academia, but the futures of all students, as well as the health of our country’s democracy and economy.