Republic Day 2018 | The meteoric rise of higher education, writes Furqan Qamar

The progress of higher education in a country of the size, diversity and complexity of India can be adequately assessed only if one takes into account the three inter-related dimensions of expansion, equity and excellence. Expansion to accommodate the growing demands and aspirations for higher education; equity to address the issues of social group and regional imbalances; and excellence to take full advantage of the equitable expansion so as to make higher education relevant to the social and economic expectation. Taken as a whole, the progress of higher education in India since Independence has simply been remarkable.

Contrary to the common criticism that one often hears about higher education, it is a truism that India has made remarkable progress in this realm since Independence. Compared to less than two dozen universities and 500 colleges with just about a lakh of students in 1950, we now have over 900 universities, 40,000 colleges and 11,669 stand-alone higher educational institutions in the country. This simply qualifies us to be the single largest system of higher education found anywhere in the world.

Even in terms of enrolment, India can legitimately boast of being the second largest system of the world and with the enrolment figure already crossing 3.57 crore we shall soon surpass all other countries of the world. Such is the size of our higher education enrolment that it exceeds the entire population of at least 160 countries of the world. Even in relative terms, as indicated by the participation rate or gross enrolment ratio (GER), i.e the proportion of the population in the age group 18-23 years accessing higher education, India has come a long way from a meagre one percent in 1950 to a decent 25.2 per cent. now. Should one take the age cohort of 18-22 years, the GER in higher education exceeds 29.3 per cent. 

Coming to the second critical dimension of equity and inclusion, India’s track record has been no less impressive. Gender parity index, an indicator of participation of women in higher education, has steadily risen to touch 0.94, which, in simple terms, means that boys and girls represent equally in higher education enrolment, indeed quite impressive when compared to the fact that at the time of Independence, women in higher education were only conspicuous by their absence. Equally spectacular is the change in the participation rate of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in higher education which now stand at 21.1 and 15.4 percent respectively. Affirmative actions and enabling policy frameworks have indeed strived to make our higher education truly inclusive, though the challenges of mitigating regional imbalances and disciplinary variations continue to remain significant even as of now. So are the challenges of enhancing access of religious minorities, particularly Muslims and that of the economically weaker sections of the society which, though improving, is still far below the national average.

Coming to the third and final dimension of quality and excellence, India’s accomplishment has at best been mixed. The present state of affairs can be best described by the fact that we have a tiny number of islands of excellence amidst a vast sea of mediocrity. Critically, even the best of our higher educational institutions compare very poorly with the best of the world. It is, therefore, no surprise that none of our higher educational institutions so far have made it amongst the top two hundred of the best of the world by any global rankings of repute. This must, however, not be construed that the quality of higher education in the country has declined since Independence; on the contrary, there has been a gradual rise when assessed across objective parameters of output encompassing research, publication, patent etc. On an average, we are far better than what we were at the time of Independence.

Our demographics are in favour and that advantage shall remain available for some more years to come. Indians value higher education and aspire to receive the best available at any cost. India has had invested heavily in terms of systems and processes which are at par with the best in the world. In fact in our zeal to ensure quality we have developed a rather complex regulatory system, which may have to be reformed. India enjoys a reputation for producing a reasonably good quality graduates. Should we work to capitalise on these potentials, there is no reason that we can not excel in the field of higher education.

The author is Secretary General, Association of Indian Universities; views expressed are personal