TRANSFORMING HIGHER EDUCATION

WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF NEW EDUCATION POLICY, QUALITY ENHANCEMENT INITIATIVES HAVE GAINED MOMENTUM. THE QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IS BEING ENHANCED BY ACCREDITATION AGENCIES LIKE NAAC AND NBA

India with an illustrious history of holistic education has always been focussing on the pursuit of knowledge (Gyan), wisdom (Pragyaa) and truth (Sathyaa) as the highest human goal. As rightly said by Swami Vivekananda, “Education is not the amount of information that we put into our brain and run riots there, undigested, all through life. We must have life-building, man-making and character-making assimilation of ideas”. The Indian education system is the third largest system in the world. There have been changes worldwide in the higher education system. India for decades is largely focused on issues of access and equity but did not do much with regard to quality of education.

Apart from the National Education Policy of 1986, modified in 1992, there has not been any major change in the education policy at all. The changes need to stand against the challenges ahead of us especially in the changed context of globalisation without compromising on the legacy and heritage of ancient and eternal Indian knowledge systems.

There has been an exponential increase in the number of institutions and enrolment of students. There are nearly 1,043 universities and 45,000 colleges across India. This increase in the students strength and number of institutions have led to the decline of quality over the years with students' mark-sheets not reflecting the calibre of the students. The Government of India (GOI), through UGC, has been taking earnest steps to chalk out quality enhancement measures.