Methods for Improving the Quality of Higher Education in India

Education particularly higher education is the most crucial sector for leveraging the growth and development of the nation in social, economic, cultural, political and scientific aspects. It is the basis of all national endeavors and development plans. Education provides strength and resilience to the people to respond to changing and often adverse situations. Education has the potential of transferring human beings into human resources. And thus potential development of human resource is the foremost function of education. Quality and excellence is of great significance both to the provider of higher education and education receiver in the process of building solid foundation of higher education and building capacities and capabilities of receivers, thus bridging the gap between underdeveloped and developed nation, rich and poor societies, less knowledgeable and erudite sections of population. Education has the ability to induce change leading to progress of society. Education has indeed become a subject of public policy and a sine qua non for the survival of society. In the realm of present day globalised world higher education is required to uphold creativity, talent, adaptability and quality. In order to fully utilize the fruits of higher education endeavours, the fundamental concern is to make sure that its quality and excellence are ensured, sustained and upgraded at all levels and appropriate policy measures are adopted to match our higher education system to international levels. The first section of the paper addresses the status of higher education in India. The second section focuses on the challenges faced by higher education institutions. The third section deals with the foremost policy initiatives by the government in the higher education sector. In the fourth section an attempt has been made to delineate imperative measures needed to foster quality and excellence in higher education. The paper strongly supports that the need of the present era is inclusive and qualitative expansion of higher education to uphold the cause for wide-ranging and ll round development of the nation