Dr. Niladri Pradhan
Department of Education, Malda Women’s College, Malda-732101, West Bengal. Email: pradhanniladri.mwc@gmail.com
Volume VII, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF
Abstract
India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world, and in terms of number of students enrolled, it is the second highest after China. In its size and diversity, India has the third largest higher education system in the world, next only to China and the United States. Before Independence, access to higher education was very limited and elitist, with enrolment of less than 0.2 million students in 500 colleges and 20 universities. Today, Indian higher education is comprised of 819 universities, 40,026 colleges, 91 institute of national importance and 11, 669 stand-alone institutes with enrolment of about 35.7 million students including 19 million boys & 16.07 million girls (AISHE, 2016-17). The structure, nature, features of degree and non-degree granting higher education institutes in India have been discussed in the first part of this paper. On the other hand the author has also highlighted the present scenario of Indian higher education in terms of multi-layered regulatory councils, plan and policy making bodies. Moreover the author has identified some of the strategic strides and pragmatic steps to overcome the above mentioned problems in higher education and make policy recommendations for implementations.
Keywords: Higher Education, management, governance