Governance of higher educational institutions in India: a study with special reference to public and private universities

India with a current student population of about 10 million in its universities and affiliated colleges is the third largest educational system in the world. The unexpected expansion of university education in India, has been extremely uneven and resulted in the neglect of quality education, research and administrative aspects. Today, most of the public and private universities of India function much below their optimal levels and fail even to fulfill their minimum and basic tasks such as student admissions, teaching, conducting examinations, declaring results and awarding degrees on time. Thus the governance of higher education faces some difficult challenges. Indeed, higher education is an important strategic lever for government in seeking to pursue national objectives. As public and private universities have sprung up like mushrooms in India. The deregulation of the education sector by state governments has resulted in many autonomous universities emerging in different states. Some of these universities do not have adequate infrastructure, or a proper campus or the funds to provide quality higher education. Private universities display an almost indecent enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism. They function below their optimal level and fail to even fulfill their basic tasks such as making admissions, completing teaching, conducting exams, declaring results and awarding degrees on time. When entrepreneurs who start private universities have a commercial orientation with commercial goals in mind, they are far away from the scholarly goals of knowledge creation and dissemination. Economic rationality rather than academic excellence is the modus operandi. In my opinion, every educational institution, whether public or private, is accountable not only to those students who are studying in the institution, but to prospective students and the stakeholders particularly public at large as well.