There has been a significant growth in enrolment in higher education in recent years; which has been substantially contributed by the private sector in technical education. However, despite various initiatives, a New Education Policy after 1992 is yet to be promulgated which is in sync with India’s liberalization policy to foster quality & improve Human Development Index (HDI). Research and excellence remain a serious challenge, compounded by policy prevarication. Public funding arrangement is grossly inadequate and largely to elitist institutions. The paper argues that our obsession with improving enrolment has to give way to credible quality improvement measures. Specifically there is a need to upscale public spending, treat private sector as a partner, improve industry academia interface, encourage research, Public Private Partnership (PPP), improve infrastructure and encourage FDI into higher education sector through MoUs with reputed foreign universities. The paper also cautions against recent ambivalence towards Open Distance Learning (ODL).
Keywords: FDI, HDI, Liberalization, ODL, PPP
