ICRIER Working Paper No. 180
HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA: THE NEED FOR CHANGE

June 2006
By Pawan Agarwal

Higher education in India suffers from several systemic deficiencies. As a result, it continues to provide graduates that are unemployable despite emerging shortages of skilled manpower in an increasing number of sectors. The standards of academic research are low and declining. Some of the problems of the Indian higher education, such as – the unwieldy affiliating system, inflexible academic structure, uneven capacity across various subjects, eroding autonomy of academic institutions, and the low level of public funding are well known. Many other concerns relating to the dysfunctional regulatory environment, the accreditation system that has low coverage and no consequences, absence of incentives for performing well, and the unjust public funding policies are not well recognised. Driven by populism and in the absence of good data, there is little informed public debate on higher education in India.

This paper takes a comprehensive look at the various facets of higher education in India. It adopts a systems approach for achieving policy coherence and multi-level coordination required to address genuine concerns in the Indian higher education on a long-term basis and uses the experiences of other countries to suggest measures to tackle its various systemic deficiencies.

It is expected that this paper will serve as a useful input for setting an agenda for change in higher education, shaping the prevailing opinion and mobilizing new constituencies to bring about the much needed change.

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Author’s contact: pagarwal@icrier.res.in

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