Reforms in Higher Education in India: A Review of Recommendations of Commissions and Committees on Education

The discourses on higher education system in India after Independence could be distinguished by four major trends. First trend is the reluctance to expansion and restriction to admission without improving current facilities available in higher education institutions (HEI) and diverse views on continuity and change in the ways in which research is organized in higher education. The second trend concerns academic improvement related to curriculum, content, assessment and evaluation. Different commissions and committees on education are united in marking the irrelevant content and curriculum, admissions far in excess of capacity of facilities and faculty, deficient teaching methods and an outdated examination system, which tests rote learning rather than real learning and subject knowledge, as the reasons. The third trend is concerned with the discourses on reorganization of governance of HEIs for purposes of greater accountability. Autonomy and reorganization of universities were approached differently by different committees. The fourth strand relates to the privatization and private participation in higher education. The paper argues that private engagement in HE is now gaining wider policy legitimacy.