Higher Education in India: A Change for Betterment of System
Education in India- has gained prominence due to advances in Technology and related Applications. Knowledge addresses issues in the Societies about how information and ideas are to be created and transformed into plan, thereafter, adopted at an accelerating speed. Knowledge and education has always been a distinguishing characteristic of human beings in view of their unique capacity to formulate and continuously transmit knowledge.
Education is recognized as one of the critical elements of the national development effort and Higher education, in particular. It is of vital importance for the nation, as it is a powerful tool to build knowledge based society of the 21st century. The activities of Department of Higher Education are focused towards developing India as knowledge society. The Education Department has been on a constant endeavor to improve and expand education in all sectors, with a view to eliminate disparities in access and lay greater emphasis on the improvement in the quality and relevance of education at all levels. The role of technology helped departments, to program, implement and coordination with other stakeholders, knowledge management, research and innovation, creation of intellectual property, training and capacity building, reaching out to women and other minorities in the higher education sector. The Department has also established a number of premier institutions which have come to acquire a reputation for excellence and national importance.
The education industry has undergone dynamics of vast landscaping for reaching the untapped areas of learning, research and witnessing outstretch of digitalization of education industry. Research and technological advancement has changed the pace and face of education, making it more vibrant, practical and distended than ever before. India is the third largest educational entity in terms of higher education of the world in terms of student enrolment (13.64 million), and first in terms of total number of higher educational institution (26,000 institutions) comprising of 8 percent public sector institutions and 92 percent of private sector institution. The number of universities and colleges has arisen from 578 in the year 1951 to 25,951 in the year 2010. The current estimates indicate that the spending on higher education in India to be nearly INR 46,200 crores i.e. 32.3 percent of public expenditure in 2010 against 10.9 percent in 1950-51. 30 new Central Universities were proposed in the 11th five year plan.
On technical education, side 8 new IITs, 20 NITs, 20 IIITs, 3 IISERs, 7 IIMs, 2 SPAs and 500 new community Polytechnics and 210 new community colleges have also been proposed. There are 18 regulatory bodies that provide more effective assessment and evaluation of academic performance. Such statistic shows the paradigm swift of the education industry in India and opens a new frontier with further opportunities for growth and advancement. Higher education worldwide is moving toward creative disruption on multiple fronts. These advancements are like double edged sword, and educationists need much excellence to put these developments in right, directive and productive path.
