India’s Cities Rising: The Challenges in Higher Education

Abstract

In recent decades, urban population growth, combined with the impact of globalization, has influenced higher education in India. In this chapter the authors examine the growth of higher education since Independence; in particular, evaluating the changing role of government, the changing dynamics of access to education leading to the development, and the demand for higher education in more recent times. The authors argue that under the impact of globalization not only has the structure of higher education changed but with the introduction of distance and online education, and information and communication technology (ICT) as well as cross-border higher education, the dynamics of higher education has also changed. The resultant impact is growth of privatization in higher education, with the use of ICT, which has added an extra dimension to the delivery and reception of education in India. All this not only has consequences for the contextualization of higher education in twenty-first century India but it also calls for reconsideration of existing policy geography.