Scenario of Indian Higher Education

Dr. Hari Krishna Maram
Dr. Hari Krishna Maram, Chairman & Founder CEO Imperial College & Digital Brand Ambassador, Vision Digital India
An education system that values creativity is one that makes a deliberate effort to spark thoughtfulness and independent thinking, teaches students how to learn, instills a lifelong love of learning, pushes students to find their own interpretations, and guides the development of a strong moral compass. Creativity in education has to do with a constructivist approach to education, where learning is an active, contextualized process of knowledge construction that builds on prior knowledge, social interaction and authentic tasks, rather than the passive receiving of information.

The countries which achieved socio-economic development are those countries that achieved economic prosperity only through academic excellence. The economically developed nations include USA, UK, Canada, Australia and other European countries whose formal education system is more than one thousand years old. Education plays a significant role in capability enhancement as it minimizes problems involving unemployment of the people. Most of the leaders expressed over time and again his displeasure over the dismal performance of higher education delivery system when the sees that none of the Universities of India is in top 200 in the world ranking of Universities.

Presently, there are 780 Degree awarding institutions which include 46 Central Universities, 340 State Universities, 130 Deemed Universities, 230 private universities and about 50 Institutions of National Importance besides about 39,000 Degree Colleges in the country. The seed of Higher Education of India was sown when University of Calcutta, University of Bombay and University of Madras came into existence in 1857. In the country, the number of 30 Universities and 695 Colleges in 1950 has grown upto 750 Universities and other institutions of higher education as of now. The colleges and universities including IITs and NITs are suffering from acute shortages of qualified teachers. Out of 22, 80,000 students enrolled for higher education, 86 percent end up with bachelor degree, 12 percent acquires master degree and 1 percent with Certificates/Diplomas and 1 percent only acquire Ph.D. Degree and this trend is definitely not a healthy sign for a country like India who aspires to be one of the super economic powers across the globe in the forth-coming days.

Research means progress, research means socio-economic development and setting up both short term and long term planning and periodic review of the same after due study.

To call a spade, the higher education delivery system is in dismal state and it fails to attract the learners since the current education system is found to churn out only unemployable graduates. Teaching and research are the twin tasks of education delivery system and both are not given due priority by the twin tasks of education delivery system and both are not given due priority by the planners and policy makers. The universities and institutes of higher learning are devoid of basic infrastructure, connectivity, transportation, communication and other necessary facilities. It is worth noting that the names of Universities are announced first without giving adequate thoughts and attention to the provisions of infrastructural and other incidental issues.

Oxford, Cambridge, MIT and Harvard are not built overnight but by honest and sincere efforts of the meritorious academicians who are completely independent of bureaucratic influence and because they enjoy academic freedom. World class Universities cannot create without support of sustained research. Moreover University education needs to be linked with the requirement of the industries. A balance needs to be maintained between basic research and applied research. Research means progress, research means socio-economic development and setting up both short term and long term planning and periodic review of the same after due study.

The Universities and Institutions of higher learning are controlled by UGC in particular and government in general. It is a transparent truth that creation of post, fixation of pay, designing syllabi and curricula, allocation of fund and so on are regulated by bureaucratic action. Academic Performance Indicators (API) is not a foolproof mechanism for quality control. It hardly serves any purpose. The policy makers hardly keep in view that a University to become a good University must be able to support the learning process and research activities. Research is the instrument for creation of knowledge. The Universities are hardly in a position to subscribe the renowned journals, enrich libraries with good collection of books and journals and laboratories are not well equipped for conducting investigation.

Comparatively, there is little encouragement for undertaking research in Social Sciences, Commerce and Management from Government and other project funding agencies. A University needs all-round support consisting of infrastructure, qualifies teachers, and library and research activities. Our policy makers speak about many things about promotion of world class Universities but there is considerable degree of gap between thoughts and actions. Presently, higher education delivery system is directionless and is twisting hither and thither with every change of direction of wind and in nut shell it is nothing but rudderless ship, Universities shall be able to discharge the social responsibilities if they are strategized to achieve their goals keeping in view the purpose for which they are created.

Dr. Hari Krishna Maram

He is a highly motivated, experienced creative communicator with proven ability to "Achieve beyond Expectation". With a focus on research and teaching, Dr Hari prefers to educate the next generation of leaders with the firm conviction that business can be a force for good in the world.

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