PRESENT SCENARIO AND FUTURE PROSPECTS OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA

Abstract - Education is one of the significant factors instrumental to the development of a country. It should be transformed to the needs of the time and changing scenario of the world. In particular, the higher education and the mode of its delivery should be tuned time and again for greater development and changes to cope with such challenges. In this backdrop, given the present scenario of Indian higher education, there needs a paradigm shift in the higher education system. The higher education in India is, in general, seemed to be bleak since post-independence and raises several questions still unanswered. The unplanned expansion of higher education opportunities, spiraling trend of the educated unemployed, commercialization of education, the imbalance of quantity with quality, ignorance equity and excellence, are some of the pertinent cases in point which pose continuous threats to higher education of India. In this light, the new reforms in education to come must address all the above concerns in higher education and involve innovative modalities of how to classify and reclassify information, how to look at problems from new and different directions and at last how to bring about new future society to meet the challenges to come. To meet the futuristic prospects of Indian higher education, teachers should not be spared in such meaningful reforms since teachers provide with the best trained manpower for a nation such as technologists, scientists, doctors, engineers, policy makers, businessmen etc. It is therefore teachers too should be empowered as a part of reforms for Indian higher education meeting the growing demands of liberalization and globalization going on in the world. Hence, the emerging Indian society needs to make the system of their higher education must innovative and futuristic to face the changing demands of the modern Indian Society.