• Continuous efforts are being made to make India a global hub for higher education.
• Over the last 6 years, many structural efforts have been made towards higher education. 

Current status of Higher Education 

• In today’s era, higher education has been the focus with our increased efforts to establish more number of IIT’s and other research institutions.
• There is increased interest among students to take up higher education particularly in the field of research.
• The government’s approaches towards the education sector are in par with Atma Nirbhar Bharat.
• Inclusion of women in higher education is increasing because of access and quality.
• The current National Education Policy (NEP) has emphasized the creation of a National Research Foundation to improve the research ecosystem as well as towards multidisciplinary and holistic education.
• Thus, the Indian education system is plural as well as diverse.

Pillars for strengthening Higher Education

1. Infrastructure- for quality education
2. Human resource- for nurturing the talent
3. Governance- for building leadership qualities 
4. Maintenance and financing of institutions
5. Autonomy for institutions

What needs to be done to create a research ecosystem ?

• For moving from service to product economy, research is an essential component.
• The NEP focusses on strengthening school education for building innovative skills for the future which needs to be replicated.
• Public – Private Partnership is essential for building the research culture.
• The socially relevant, locally need based and nationally important research needs to be identified and carried forward.
• Funding of institutions with research excellence can also be a way to provide research-based education.

Challenges

1. The first and foremost challenge is to overcome infrastructural limitations.
2. Introduction of quality towards excellence in terms of research.
3. The behavioural limitation of the people towards digital education.
4. State Universities have a lot of restrictions for research , funding , curriculum etc.

Way Forward

• The vocational training needs to be considered as primary.
• Research funding should be performance based or outcome based.
• Public Private Partnership is needed for providing digital education.
• Skill based curriculum can be made for the school level.
• Introduction of accountability and healthy competition among higher education institutions.

Conclusion

• The interest needs to be multi dimensional and increased access to quality education can be ensured by reinventing the universities from time to time.

Reference:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-NwncYsYu0