Abstract
The world is increasingly shifting towards a knowledge economy where foreign trade has been replaced by an information exchange. The revaluation has shifted focus of individuals of a nation’s abilities and resources to generate human capital. Creation of human capital largely depends on education and research output of a country. But higher education in India suffers from several systematic deficiencies and difficulties. As a result it produces graduates and post graduates, who are unemployable due to the fact of shortage of skill and quality. India has one of the largest higher education systems in the world, with 25.9 million students enrolled in more than 45,000 degree and diploma institutions in the country. During the Eleventh Plan period (2007–2012), India achieved a Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 17.9%, up from 12.3% at the beginning of the Plan period. The investment made in higher education in the 1950s and 1960s has given us a strong knowledge base in many fields and contributed significantly to economic development, social progress, and political democracy in independent India. At the time of independence, the number of universities was no more than 20, and of colleges around 500 and the total enrolment was less than 1.0 lakh. By the end of the Tenth Plan, the Indian higher education system has grown into one of the largest in the world with 378 universities, 18064 colleges, a faculty strength of 4.92 lakh, and an estimated enrolment of 140 lakh students.
References
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