India is a developing country which has huge talent reserves. In the changing economic scenario, it provides various opportunities to the people to arise in the context of higher education. There is a great need to increase the skills of the vast proportion of youth or young generations and develop the efficient employable force, as India is on the path of qualitative development.
According to the report of the research, the higher education sector in India is considered as the largest sector in the world that has enrolled about 70 million students. This sector is growing at 18% and will reach to 34.12 US Dollar billion in next 10 years. To groom the right talent, private institutions, businesses, and government institutions are taking the huge interest.
India is moving towards the age of digitization with various challenges and opportunities in the higher education sector that is circumscribed by the advancing technology. This results in a shift to e-learning and introduction of various courses that are industrial relevant which includes IT infrastructure management, mobile application development, digital marketing, cloud analytics, etc.
India also needs to make concerted efforts to address the following challenges to create an environment for education.
- At present, private sector institutions account for around 59% enrolments in higher education. The initial objective is to provide a service so that students could get a degree, and subsequently, a good job. Many education specialists call it the “service model” of education.
- Another challenge is financial constraints. Expenditure on education and related infrastructure is the key parameter for the government to judge the quality of education. State and central governments can only attribute about 20-30 percent funds from their total budgets on education. Much higher and stable investments are needed to cater to the growing demand.
- The Indian Education System faces an issue of quality teaching as well. Traditional methods of teaching, more focus on theoretical learning, lack of practical exposure, outdated curricula and pedagogy, and separation of research and teaching are some factors under the purview of this challenge in the higher education sector.
- Prominent business firms taking interest in higher education and a steady stream of investors backing educational start-ups, a strategic approach will lead to collaboration between education and entrepreneurship.
- Collaboration with foreign institutions and use of the digital medium in the classroom, such as video lectures, foretell huge possibilities for online and blended learning, instructional design, teacher development, management and support systems.
- A strong integration of knowledge with co-curricular initiatives to support better learning and teaching is essential to improve standards of higher educational institutions.
Corresponding to these challenges, the Indian government, as well as private institutions, has realized the need to reform higher education sector with future-forward policies and measures. So, they offer some opportunities in the context of higher education in India are specified below.
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