Transforming Indian Higher Education

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This book is perhaps the culmination of my more than two decades of close interactions and intense discussions with Indian academicians, policy makers, edu-entrepreneurs and industrialists who have been key players and influencers in policy making for higher education.

After teaching at Agra for two decades, I joined the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) in 1995 as the deputy director. During my stint with AICTE, I had the opportunity to meet a galaxy of eminent Indians involved in policy making for the AICTE which was at its nascent stage during those times. Meeting iconic education thinkers like Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, Dr M Anandkrishnan, Prof Yashpal, Dr Abid Hussain and Dr Arun Nigavekar was an enriching experience for me.

I worked with the AICTE till 1999. Those were very exciting times. The country was passing through a spate of economic reforms and sectors like IT and Telecom were expanding at a rapid speed. In the AICTE, my office cabin was opposite to the office of Prof Yashpal. I had many occasions to meet him and have interesting discussions on educational issues. My tenure at the AICTE gave me a rich exposure to how national policies were formulated and implemented by the stakeholders.

In September, 1999, I was invited by the Birlas to join BIMTECH, New Delhi as its Director. I succeeded Dr C B Gupta, who had been a legendary figure in Indian higher education. He had been the Principal of SRCC, University of Delhi and also the Founder Director, IMT, Ghaziabad. In 1988, he was invited by Birlas to start BIMTECH. He was my mentor at BIMTECH for a few years and guided me to imbibe some of the best practices of University of Delhi, SRCC, Delhi and St. John's College, Agra where he had worked for several decades.

In early 2000, BIMTECH did not have a national level visibility and its students were mostly from NCR, UP and Rajasthan. Faculty support was mostly from DU as visiting faculty. In my early years at BIMTECH, Delhi, I could establish good rapport with Dr Pritam Singh, the then Director of IIM, Lucknow, Maj Gen. DN Khurana, the then DG, AIMA; Shri Stya Paul, Chairman, Apeejay Group: Dr Devi Singh, Director, MDI, Gurgaon and Prof Ishwar Dayal, founding faculty of IIM, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. In management education, these stalwarts have been my source of inspiration.

Working with BIMTECH, Delhi, I could find many opportunities to update my knowledge in institution building and understanding the dynamics of Indian higher education. Libraries of AIU, Delhi, Delhi School of Economics, British Council and American Centre provided me ample literature by leading researchers on Indian and global higher education. Between 200-2015, I visited USA, UK, France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, UAE, Scotland, China, Hong Kong, Spain, Australia, Singapore, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya, Nepal, and Bhutan to visit their leading universities and institutions of higher learning. Everywhere I could see significant changes happening in higher education.

The idea of bringing out a volume on the theme of "Transforming Indian Higher Education' came into my mind in course of a meeting with Late Mr Suresh Gopal, Publisher-Special Projects, Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, who suggested that I should take initiative to bring out a book for giving a future perspective to the Indian Higher Education. His untimely demise in April 2015 has been felt at all stages in compiling this book.

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to all the content contributors of this book. They not only responded to my invitation to contribute to the book promptly but also with their intellectual inputs have immensely raised the quality of the pool of literature available on Indian higher education. I am sure this book would provide valuable insights and perspectives to the policy makers and educationists.

At Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH), my senior colleagues, Dr Arunaditya Sahay, Dean (Research) and Pro Shri Prakash, Emeritus Professor have lent their valuable support to bring out this volume. Dr Jagdish Shettigar, Area Head, Economics at BIMTECH has always been supporting my academic endeavours, including this book. Prof K K Krishnan, Dr (Mrs) Sangeeta Shukla and Dr Rahul Singh have helped me in improving the readability of the book. I am grateful to all my colleagues mentioned here.