CONCEPT NOTE

NATIONAL SENINAR ON HIGHER EDUCATION

HIGHER EDUCATION IN 21ST CENTURY INDIA
- CHALLENGES, OPPORTUNITIES AND IMPACTS
(22nd and 23rd August 2020 (Saturday and Sunday)

The history of any object is important whenever our job is to

improve upon its future. Learning the history of education and
higher education in particular would help us to understand the
strengths and weaknesses of previous endeavors in the area
and probe into various educational philosophies associated
with these endeavors to conceptualize a scientific perspective
of history of education.
The challenges, opportunities and impacts relating to today’s
education in our country are no exception and accordingly a
historical understanding of all three aspects in their
interdependency becomes an objective necessity to develop
future interventions to make it all inclusive by all the relevant
stake holders, specially the state.
History of Education will also help us to understand how the
past events shaped the present education systems, theories,
philosophies and related phenomenon in the area of education
in particular and higher education in general. Secondly, it will
enable us to appreciate the importance of education to
mankind since time immemorial (when we started living
collectively through a system called SOCIETY) across the
generations. By so doing, we will be able to critically examine
the fundamental part which education plays in the
transformation of our society.
At this stage, it also becomes imperative to understand the
importance of Philosophical Underpinning/Underpinnings a
country adopts in developing an appropriate institutional
framework to address the three aspects as indicated above in
our main theme and for the Education System as a whole by
the state mainly because of its strategic role & impact all
pervasive for the society as a whole. We are not undermining
the importance of other stake holders but in a relative
comparison, the role of state becomes much wider in its
strategic significance to achieve the goals of any EDUCATION
SYSTEM towards an equitable society depending upon the kind
of educational philosophy one country adopts.
Sociological Philosophy of Education, among others claims
needs to be the most comprehensive. This lays down the basic
concepts of sociological foundations of education as required to
be understood by every specialist of the subject and our aim
also is to address our main theme in the light of this philosophy
only.
WHY THIS CONFERENCE?
Needless to emphasize, we all know the role play being played
by Education in transformation of our society as an institution
for a country like ours as a whole. It is in fact equally applicable
to all other countries as well and thus for the mankind as a
whole towards our common survival, growth continuity based
on some universal objective laws governing our social
development.
Our country with its vast diverse religious & philosophical
traditions can play a pivotal role not for the country but for the
mankind while adopting an appropriate humane education
philosophy in this regard.
India is poised to become the fastest growing economy in the
world yet continues to face key development challenges. As
recent studies would show, higher education is facing a global
challenge with respect to structures, institutional mechanism
and pedagogic practices. The advent of online and digital
learning platforms, as well as a newly ‘connected world’ pose
challenges to traditional modes of face-to-face teaching. Yet
the importance of human agents in education can never be
minimized. At the same time, the ‘connected world’ is far from
being a world of equal opportunity or equal development.
Economic inequality, rapid technological obsolescence and
problems of employability make questions of access, quality
and relevance extremely complex, especially in a developing
nation like India. Higher education priorities will necessarily be
driven by the emergence of new fields related to ecology and
environment, as well as interdisciplinary fields within
humanities and social sciences. These are key areas of
CHANLLENGES, WHICH THIS CONFERENCE WILL ADDRESS
through a comprehensive robust institutional mechanism
involving all stake holders.
This will not be possible unless we address all other socio-
cultural issues: social evils like corruption, all possible forms of
discrimination, lack of political will, climate change, Human
Ecology, leveraging technology to bridge the skills-gap, and
incorporating appropriate philosophical base in policy-making
to build a culture of leadership and excellence, India can
effectively prepare for its new global leadership role, thereby
leveraging the potential of its vast and unique human resource.
Key Pratical Challenges/ Issues:
(1) Mindset change in adopting a just Education Philosophy
incorporating equality, providing opportunity to all ,
distributive justice ( resource allocation),
(2) Allocating all necessary resources including financial to
achieve our stated objectives as narrated in our recent
education policy
(3) Proper implementation strategy coupled with relevant
feedback system for review
(4) Proper coordination among all stake holders, specially
the state’s role to be made black &while
(5) No political ideological interference in developing,
adopting and implementing an appropriate EDUCATION
NSTITUTION ( at present HRD MINISTRY)
(6) Technological integration for the entire gamut of
educational system, starting from policy level to
implementation at the grass root level
(7) Talking our education system from present level of
competition to qualitatively higher level to remain
globally relevant
(8) Encasing higher education market potentials in less
developing countries like AFRICA, SOUTH ASIA , SOUTH
EAST ASIA, ASIA PACIFIC through appropriate
interventional strategy at the govt to govt level
(9) Heavy emphasis on quality all inclusive in all the
possible dimensions of HIGHER EDUCATION
(10) Robust policy development, the most crucial one
involving all possible segments of our country, relevant
for this purpose
 (11) Restructuring of the present HRD ministry to make it
more cohesive and integrated with stake holders both
national and international
(12) Periodic review mechanisms to look into the progress as
developed and laid down in our Education policy
Guidelines.
(13) Highest level of objectivity in developing, implementing
and evaluating the progress as per laid down in our
education policy at the macro level (HRD MINISTRY)
along with some other critical issues.
In short, therefore, the Indian higher education is facing several
challenges including relevance, access, equity, quality, funding,
privatization and internationalization, its linkage with our
economy, building appropriate curriculum etc to transform our
country into a knowledge economy and society of individuals
who are ‘educated and skilled’. We after all have to educate
individuals to convert them into ‘complete humans’ as
described in the terms of our great poet and educator
Rabindranath Tagore. The students must not be divorced of the
environment in which they live. Also, following the popular
saying that today’s job with yesterday’s tools and be in business
tomorrow, new knowledge has to be recognized as the global
changers of the economy and hence the society. The education
system must be sensitive enough to recognize this process of
globalization. As Tagore said “The highest education is that
which does not merely give us information but makes our life in
harmony with all existence.”
KEY TAKE AWAYS:
Appreciation of the current perspectives
Scope and challenges towards quality improvement
The perspective for future initiatives based on empirical data
driven support
Comparative standing of the scenario in the domain of higher
education via-a vis global practices
Role of technology in higher education to create competitive
advantage
Imperatives of public- private collaboration for
Higher education towards Inclusive growth
Co-relation between higher education and sustainability
Through exposure and understanding of policy issues from an
historical perspective
A clear understanding of interdependency and interfaces
among different stake holders engaged into higher education
Role of Central and state govt in adopting proactive measures
towards education for all agenda along with leveraging the
young age dividend of our country.