Embracing the Global Knowledge Economy: Challenges Facing Indian Higher Education

Knowledge Economy an economy in which growth is dependent on the quantity, quality, and accessibility of the information available, rather than the means of production. Education is the fundamental enabler of knowledge economy.

How is India Placed in the Global Knowledge Market? Education system is not to create a workforce of degree holders but it is an economic tool that covers the existing knowledge to improve overall productivity across industries and human development.

The education system provide the most attractive opportunity for lifting Indians out of poverty by enhancing overall productivity and per capita income.

With a population less then 3% of India, Canada has roughly the same numbers of persons engaged in R&D as India: - 10 times the no. of patents - employment in china in R&D is 9 times India - India spends 0.85% of GDP while China spends 1.5 % in R&D

- rank on complex index that measures our ability to create, absorb and diffuse knowledge in 98 out of 128 countries. Our peer and competitors in IT and other service sectors such as China, Brazil, Russia and Philippines are some 30 to 50 places ahead of India.

Flaws in IES Absence of a well defined production function for HEI: - goal is only to maximize profit - quality of education can not be measured precisely, craze is for certificate

Failure of education as a screening device 1) HE sector : degrees are for sell and students have becomes clients. 2) Certificates and grades have ceased to reveal the true quality of students in market and the result of this is serious mismatch between demand and supply of specific skills. 3) A proportion of graduates work in areas other than those they were trained for.

Challenges Facing Indian Higher Education 1) Teaching quality : decreasing teaching quality teachers are not well trained and qualified for the job they are assigned to. Some colleges recruit young graduates as prof. who are inexperienced.

2) Privatization 3) Financing 4) Quota system

Gape in supply and demand India’s GER is just 19% which is not good. GER 6% below the world average and at least 50% lesser then developed countries like Australia and USA.

Mushrooming of low quality institutes India has largest number of higher education institutions in the world. Their objective is maximize profit not the quality of education.

No project based learning Young graduates need to learn new skills specially vocational skill that can give them job. just theory is not enough.

No strategy There is no strategy for higher education in India. We don’t have foreign students coming to the India for studying here. Govt. has no plans, this is a big challenge

Why only servicing industry We are obsessed with servicing industry. We all want to get selected in campus selection so we love jobs in servicing sector only. However HE doesn’t solve the problem when it comes to creating jobs in manufacturing sector.

FOUR PILLARS OF KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY