Higher Education in India – Its Drawbacks and Suggestions for Reforms

Today the world is of science, new inventions, and competitions to excel over the other. We can be proud to be a part of our great country but the world has shrunk today to a common platform on the basis of higher education and learning. Everybody has to be ready to receive and contribute to new ideas, thoughts, and systems. To gain the benefits of modern society and compete with the outside world, it is necessary that the youth of our country get higher education. More and more avenues of higher education are provided to them at affordable prices and in all locations so that all-around development in the personality of the complete society takes place. Rather now it is the duty of each individual to ask for higher studies and be broadminded.

During the last few years, universities have increased manifold to impart higher education through various colleges all over the country. Liberal grants have been sanctioned by University Grants Commission. Many colleges have emerged in the private sector also to provide higher education. In different big cities and towns, the massive infrastructure of buildings has come up which is supposed to be the centre of higher learning. However, these centres have started converting into hotbeds of political intrigues. They were expected to radiate learning, discipline, sense of responsibility towards the nation, but they seem to be breathing violence, indiscipline, strikes, political groupism, and even vandalism. The House of worship and learning has turned into the House of Satan. The youth is turning unpatriotic. The students take admission in these universities for the sake of just qualification instead of developing self-reliance, confidence, and a sense of duty with a planned career.

Nowadays, we find that there is overcrowding in the classes of higher education also. The ratio of teachers as compared to pupils is very low and the teachers don’t have any personal feelings with the students. And thus higher education is examination-ridden. Easy and short-cut methods are being adopted to achieve success. The students are getting fascinated by all things except books. The dependence on the Examinations only is the main cause of deterioration in our education system. No real or practical knowledge is gained by the students. There is a big gap between practical life and education in colleges. Going to college seems to be a place of enjoyment in paradise for the students. However, their rosy dreams are shattered when they come out of college and enter actual life. They have to return disappointed when they search for a service from door to door. It is due to purely technical education given to them.

The system of imparting higher education should be such that after completing education in college, the youth should not be dependent solely on service, but must be able to start some independent small-scale industry or business on his own. Vocationalisation of education is the need of the hour. More and more technical and vocational institutions need to be started where training modules in practical aspects of career must be compulsory. Every effort should be made to inspire the students with noble and innovative ideas. It should be compulsory for students to appear in psychological tests. This will enable the students to choose subjects and careers of their own choice. In this way, the students can plan their careers from the very beginning. Just after their schooling, they would be able to decide the career which they wish or are interested in pursuing.

For more success in higher education, it is required that instead of lengthy examinations at a stretch; the due importance should be given to intelligence tests, personal interviews, and classroom works at regular intervals. The development of clean character towards the prosperity of the nation is another important aim of higher education. The aspects of these higher studies must develop lessons of national integration as well as international integration and unity more effectively.

A great stress needs to be given to establishing good libraries in our colleges and universities. Students should be encouraged to make free use of them under the table guidance of teachers free of cost. More discussions and arguments on varied topics can impart more knowledge and information than more lecturing and completing the course. Equally important are the laboratories with the latest types of equipment and items. To test the learning of books, students need to have good laboratories. An experiment is an unending quest of learning and knowledge on a permanent basis. The institutions providing higher education should be made temples of the modern age.