Education shops are increasing but we are falling behind in quality ranking of higher education.

In the golden period of independence, when many proud news comes from all sides, sometimes some disappointing news also inspires self-evaluation. One such news is about India’s higher education. There has been a lot of progress in the field of higher education in our country from a numerical point of view, but if we talk about the qualitative point of view, then there is only disappointment. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2023 overall ranking list also seems to be the same. There is a big question why we are not able to top the list of quality higher education. This question is giving an opportunity to the top leadership of the government to introspect, while the education makers will also have to think that where the error is being committed in the field of higher education, that we are not able to make a respectable place in the list of continuous quality higher education. have been

The Ministry of Education releases the ranking of educational institutions every year. This time, according to the NIRF ranking, IIT Madras has been declared the best educational institution in the country. While the second number is the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. IIT Madras’ rank in the engineering category has been maintained for the eighth consecutive year. After this, IIT Delhi is at number two and IIT Mumbai is at number three. Similarly, management colleges, pharmacy colleges, law colleges were also ranked. There is no doubt that education reform in India is a continuous process. The higher education industry is struggling to provide adequate teaching capacity but the irony is that none of India’s institutions make it to the global top hundred institutions. Only three Indian institutions have made it to the global top 200. There are a total of 41 Indian institutes and universities that have made it to the QS University Rankings list this year.

Be it IITs or IIMs or colleges and universities, the same names are seen in the educational institutions making it to the top ten of the rankings since last years. It seems that these institutions are maintaining their quality, but it is natural to ask the question that why other higher education institutions are deprived of coming in the top list? By saying what will we attract foreign students? India has been the center of higher education and quality education in ancient times, then why couldn’t it maintain this legacy after independence? The quality of any educational institution depends on its faculty. Qualified and trained teachers are needed in the faculty. The private sector recruits young graduates as professors with little to no experience or knowledge. He wants to earn maximum profit. The private sector is not interested in promoting creativity, innovation and learning of new skills among students. The reservation system in the country is very controversial. The reservation system still remains a hindrance in the quality of higher education. The young generation is more interested only in getting a job and a huge salary package. That’s why parents also motivate their children to look for a good job instead of motivating them to serve the country.

The usefulness and relevance of the new education policy announced by the Narendra Modi government is slowly coming to the fore and the layers of its objectives are being revealed. After all, starting a big revolution in the field of higher education, by August, digital universities will start and campuses of about five hundred best educational institutions of foreign countries like Oxford, Cambridge and Yale will start opening in India. Now the students of India will get world class education in their own country and it will be less expensive and convenient. One advantage of this would be that in a few years Indian education and its high standards of value would be world wide. This is a commendable initiative of the University Grants Commission related to unique and far-reaching thinking. This is the emergence of new possibilities in the field of education. Higher education which is dying in India will get new energy from this. If the extinguished lamp comes close to the lit lamp, then the light of the lit lamp can jump at any time. Not a single university of India, which calls itself Vishwaguru, is included in the top 100 universities of the world. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has achieved a global rank of 155, up from 186 last year and the first among Indian institutes. IISc Bangalore has also emerged among the top institutions globally in the Faculty Indicator on Citations. This indicates the global impact of the research produced by the institutes. The other two places in the top 200 are Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Delhi at global 172 and 174. Notably, both IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi upgraded from last year with IIT Bombay from 177th position and IIT Delhi from 185th position last year. This shows that six Indian institutions can make their mark in the top 300 global universities/institutes. Bringing change in these tragic higher education scenarios, it is to see how we can make a respectable place in quality higher education.

Due to this pathetic condition of higher education in India, during the year 2017 to 2022, more than 30 lakh Indian students went abroad for higher education. In the year 2022 alone, 7.5 lakh Indians had stated their purpose of going abroad to study. One thing is clear that the very low position of Indian higher education institutions in the world ranking is also an important reason for this. There should be concern when the higher educational institutions which are in the top ten in the ranking of India do not even come in the list of top hundred in the global ranking. This concern is also because these questions are constantly being raised whether our higher educational institutions are being successful in giving life vision to the students studying in them and providing better employment opportunities? Why can’t the young generation get that quality of study in our country for which they are eager to go abroad. Obviously, for this, we have to prepare educational institutions that make a respectable place in the global ranking. The reality is also that the purpose of higher education is not only to give degree, but to flow a new stream of contemplation, meditation and research and to create quality citizens is also included in this purpose. It has been estimated in the new National Education Policy that by the year 2035, fifty percent of the students enrolled in school will also choose the path of higher education. In such a situation, higher educational institutions of public and private sector will have to be made capable of coming in global competition. This challenge is also big because we have opened the doors of India for foreign universities as well. Therefore, India’s higher-education institutions will also have to ensure that they do not take a quantitative, but a qualitative approach. Similarly, higher education is a lost symbol, our main aim should not become a victim of distraction and misguided. Today the country is flooded with glittering and grandest university campuses. These are the campuses of private universities whose buildings look like a model of luxury, but most of the universities are becoming an example of charging huge fees from students and commercialization of education, which is paying less money to teachers, showing more education, political and political issues. They have become centers of creating communal poison and violence-anarchy.

-Lalit Garg

(The author is a senior journalist and columnist)