Political Economy of Higher Education in India Dr. Jha Binod Kumar Associate Professor, Department Of Political Science, A.N.S College, Barh (Patna)-, India Online published on 5 August, 2019. Abstract During the British rule in India, education was deliberately kept away from development agenda. The structure of the educational system in the post colonial India, were inadequate to build potential human resources required for the self reliant socio-economic development. In an attempt to remove the infirmities of these inherited structure, various commissions and committees were formed, from time to time but the growth in terms of qualitative improvement is yet to be spotted in the country. The central argument of this paper is that, higher education in India is being de-facto privatized, but this privatization has not resulted from the changing ideological commitment or nature of the Indian state, rather breaking down of state system itself. As a result we have a privatization whose ideological and institutional underpinnings remain very weak. Consequently, our education system remains sandwiched between over-regulation by the state, and a discretionary privatization, that is unable to mobilize private capital in a productive way. The most potent result of this is a secession of the middle class-ironically the very class whose interest these institutions were supposed to serve-from a stake in public institution. In fact, the education policy, far from serving the interests of middle class, is actually driven by a combination of ideology and vested interests. The quality of knowledge generated within educational institutions, and its availability to the wider economy, is becoming increasingly critical to national-competitiveness. The factor that has encouraged market orientation for higher education is: the substantial costs associated with mass higher educations which have led to a concern by governments to relies more values per unit of money committed in this sector. Despite much talk about consideration of social return on higher education, such rational calculations have rarely figured in the formulation of policy, especially at the state level. Top Keywords Neo-Liberal, Silent Revolution, Signaling Effect, Ideological entrapment, Half-baked socialism. Top |