3 Quality of Higher Education in India – An Overview

India's higher education system is the world's third largest in terms of students, next to China and the United States. The main governing body at the national level is the University Grants Commission which enforces its standards, advises the government, and helps coordinate between the centre and the states. Government initiated a planned development of higher education in India with the establishment of university Grants Commission in 1953. At present in 2014, there are 659 government recognized Universities in India. Out of them 45 are central universities, 129 are deemed universities, 173 are private universities and 312 are state universities. The overall scenario of higher education in India does not match with the global Quality standards. Hence, there is enough justification for an increased assessment of the Quality of the country’s educational institutions. Critical appraisals undertaken by the governmental committees and independent academicians have highlighted the crisis confronting the system. At present, the world-class institutions in India are mainly limited. Most of the Indian colleges and universities lack in high-end research facilities. Under-investment in libraries, information technology, laboratories and classrooms makes it very difficult to provide top quality education. This gap has to be bridged if we want to speed up our path to development