India has the second largest number of enrolments in the world, is rapidly growing access to education and has the third highest volume of scholarly outputs in the world.
India has the second largest number of enrolments in the world, is rapidly growing access to education and has the third highest volume of scholarly outputs in the world.
While global commentators have long focused on the rise in quality and capacity of Chinese institutions, the Indian Government’s commitment to building the scale and impact of higher education has set the nation on a trajectory to compete with China, the United States and Western Europe for supremacy in knowledge leadership.
Recently I visited India to discuss the ways university leaders can bolster their efforts in driving the research strategy and assess institutional impact.
Let me present a few insights about India’s higher education and research & development landscape, how it is evolving, and what these changes mean over the next ten years.
Student enrolments
Institutions
Gross Enrolment Ratio
Building the academic and research workforce
Expenditure on R&D
Government expenditure on tertiary education
Knowledge production
“India’s current academic and research workforce is insufficient to meet the strong demand”
Looking ahead
Based on the current trajectory, it is likely that India will reach a GER at tertiary level of 40% over the next ten years and is likely to achieve 50% within the next 15 years – a dramatic expansion of higher education participation and ultimately, knowledge creation and dissemination.
To achieve these goals, government expenditure on tertiary education needs to increase to over 2.5% from current rate of expenditure, there needs to be a strict execution of India’s education policies, along with continued growth in quality education among private providers.
We are likely to see India strengthening its top three standing globally in terms of scholarly outputs if there is a sustained uplift in the levels of government and businesses expenditure on research & development as well as increased investment on doctoral education and research training.
With this strengthened position, India’s research citation impact is likely to be well above the world average and its overall performance edging closer to several mature and high-income economies.
“Many [of the Indian diaspora population] are academics who are contributing to strengthen India’s quality of education”
India has the world’s largest diaspora population, and many are academics who are contributing to strengthen India’s quality of education as well as collaborating with peers back at home.
Strengthening nodes of collaboration between diaspora academics and researchers at Indian universities will be of mutual and lasting benefit to all.
Universities in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the US at present are attracting many enrolments from India because of the shortage of higher education places at quality universities within India.
The rapid growth in domestic capacity in India is likely to lead to a decline in demand for those preferred destinations in the longer term – which explains the strategic importance of institutions seeking to establish campuses and TNE partnerships within India.
Finally, the global convention on higher education entered in force in March 2023. Its adoption is likely to significantly change the way we view student mobility and access in higher education, it also makes easier the process for recognition qualifications across borders.
About the author: Angel Calderon is Director, Strategic Insights at RMIT University, Melbourne.
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