Thokchom B. Singh /IJSSAH/7(2) 2019 5-10 Vol. 7. No. 2. 2019. ©Copyright by CRDEEP Journals. All Rights Reserved. Contents available at: www.crdeepjournal.org International Journal of Social Sciences Arts & Humanities (ISSN: 2321-4147) Full Length Research Paper Issues and Challenges of Higher Education in India: With Special Reference to Mizoram Thokchom Budha Singh Government Saiha College, Mizoram, India. ARTICLE INFORMATION ABSTRACT This paper following a descriptive survey method attempts to examine some of the issues and challenges Corresponding Author: of higher education in India with special reference to Mizoram. Data were collected from primary and Ajith R. Pillai secondary sources and analyzed by employing simple descriptive statistics such as percentage. The findings were: (i) uneven access and equity in higher education among regions, states, sections and Article history: genders (ii) as per assessment of NAAC, only 25% central and 27% state universities received ‘A’ or Received: 22-07-2019 higher grade; and only a handful of universities and colleges were selected under the scheme of Revised: 26-07-2019 University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) and Colleges with Potential for Excellence (CPE) respectively (iii) library issue still persists in more than half of the colleges of Mizoram as 52.38% of Accepted: 01-08-2019 Published: 07-08-2019 principals rated them as satisfactory only, (iv) majority of the college teachers use conventional method of teaching (v) GER of higher education in Mizoram is much below the level of national average (vi) a Key words: slight increase in the budget for higher education was made in the last few years (vii) there is lack of Higher education, adequate and qualified faculty in the colleges of the state, of the 181 contractual and part-time teachers, Access, Equity, Quality, as many as 88 (48.62%) are without a SLET/NET (viii) huge disparity was found in terms of regular Gross Enrolment Ratio faculty between city and town/district colleges in the state. The gap is to the extent that the English department of a certain district college was found taking care of 5 (five) part-time faculty of which only one is with NET while a city based college with 9 (nine) faculty in that department (ix) till the end of 2nd cycle assessment of NAAC, the overall grade of the colleges in the state fell within the ranges of C, C+, C++, to B, B++ with one exception to A. More expansion of higher education without compromising the quality should be made. The existing institutions of higher learning should also be strengthened by providing adequate human and material resources by the concerned department for improvement of quality of education. Teachers in the colleges of Mizoram should be encouraged to use ICT based teaching by providing proper facilities by the department of Higher and Technical Education for effective teaching-learning. All the qualified contractual and part-time teachers should be regularized and the unqualified ones should also be encouraged to clear SLET/NET within a stipulated time. Efforts should be made by the concerned authority to remove disparity between the city and town/district colleges by providing regular faculty to the latter. Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of each college needs to intensify its activities for improvement of quality education in Mizoram. Introduction skills to contribute national development. The 21st century is the In our national development process, education system has a very age of liberalization, privatization and globalization. Knowledge important role to play, especially the higher education. A higher is the key to this age. The more knowledge one has, the more education institution is a place where new ideas germinates, empowered one is. The role of Indian higher education in this creative minds converge and interact with each other, synthesize emerging scenario of “knowledge” is not only very crucial but information and construct vision for new realities. Higher also multifaceted because creation of new knowledge primarily education provides opportunities to people to develop critical depends on strengthening the education system, academic thinking and problem solving abilities and thus enable them to restructuring, promoting new frontiers of research, innovation, face challenges in life. It provides specialized knowledge and up-gradation of technology, transfer of technology, sharing of International Journal of Social Sciences Arts & Humanities 5 Thokchom B. Singh /IJSSAH/7(2) 2019 5-10 expertise, training and knowledge management. It is a well is the third largest in the world in terms of number of students known fact that phenomenal growth has taken place in Indian next only to China and the United States of America with 34.4 higher education in the post-independence era. However, in spite million (344 lakh) enrolment of students (male: 18.5 million— of this fact, the overall condition of higher education in India is 54%, female 15.9 million—46%) and 1.33 million i.e. 13.3 lakh not very impressive in terms of quality in particular. The present regular and 0.11 million i.e.1.1 lakh temporary teachers in 789 Gross Ratio Enrolment (GER) for higher education in the universities and 39,071 affiliated colleges spread across the country is only 24.5% - male: 25.4%, female 23.5% (MHRD, country. With all these institutions, nearly 86 per cent of students 2017). This clearly reflects that about 75% of the young Indians are enrolled in bachelor’s degree programmes with about 74 per who are in the eligible age group (18-23) of receiving higher cent enrolling in three-year B.A.; B.Com. or B. Sc. degrees. One- education are still left out of the system. This is not a healthy sixth of all Indian students are enrolled in indication and indeed poses a huge challenge before the entire engineering/technology degrees. Education, medicine, nation and therefore there is an urgent need for inclusion of those agriculture, veterinary science and law all together accounts for excluded from the system to achieve the envisaged 30% GER by less than 10 per cent of total enrolment. About 12 per cent of 2020. Hence, in this study, an attempt has been made to examine students pursue post-graduate studies whereas only 2 per cent are some of the issues and challenges of higher education in India enrolled in doctoral degree and other diploma programmes with special reference to Mizoram. (Sarkar & Choudhary, 2015). Objectives Issues and Challenges of Higher Education in India 1. To study the development of higher education in Access and Equity India. As stated earlier, the growth and expansion of higher education 2. To discuss the issues and challenges of higher in India has been tremendous since independence and especially education in India with special reference to during the last few decades it has been remarkably fast. Mizoram. However, the expansion has not gone quick enough while 3. To suggest some measures to meet the issues and comparing to ever growing young population of the country. challenges. Although the GER in higher education has considerably increased, it is still not only far below the average 45% GER of Methodology developed countries but also below the global average of 30 %. As the study proposed to examine the development, issues and GER. The GER of India is even far below those of the emerging challenges of higher education in India with special reference to nations’ such as China (29%) and Malaysia (40%). Moreover, it Mizoram, the descriptive survey method was employed. The has been uneven and as a result of that there is wide disparity primary as well as secondary data were used to analyze the among the different regions, states and sections of society. problem. The primary data were collected through a According to AISHE (2016-2017), GER of some of the states questionnaire from 21 principals of Government colleges and union territories such as Tamil Nadu (46.9%) and functioning under the department of Higher and Technical Chandigarh (56.1%) is much higher than that of the GER of Education where only general education is imparted while Bihar (14.4%). Similarly, there exists a huge gap between the secondary data were gathered from the official website of the GER of male and female across the country. When the GER of MHRD, UGC, All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), male is 25.4 %, it is 23.5 % for female. According to a report of related research work, journals, news papers, books, etc. The data Annual Status of Higher Education (ASHE, 2013) in States and were analyzed by employing simple descriptive statistics such as Union Territories, the GER in rural areas - 13.9% is not even the percentage. half of the GER of urban areas - 32.5%. One obvious reason for this kind of situation can be non-availability of proper facilities Development of Higher Education in India of higher education in rural areas of our country. The At the time of independence, there were only 19 universities and Ramamurthy Committee (1990) in its report had strongly pleaded about 500 affiliated colleges in the entire country. There has been for giving all support to rural universities and institutions. a tremendous expansion of higher education in India after However, even now the idea of rural universities/institutes is independence. During 1951 to 2001, the number of universities being implemented on a limited scale only. Hence, gaps in access increased from 28 to 266, colleges from 578 to 11,146, teachers to higher education between rural and urban areas still exist from 15,000 to 39,500, and students from 1.74 lakh to 83.99 (Siddiqui, 2010). Further despite many attempts to improve the lakh. But Indian higher education has expanded at a fast pace access and outreach, social disparity persists in higher education.