44 mn students to enter higher education in next 10 years

India’s higher education enrolment will move up to 44 million from the current 14 million in a decade, the Central government said on Friday, underlining that private players, distance education and foreign education providers will play key roles in ensuring this growth.

Human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal said at the click4college Leadership Summit that the Central government looks to add 30 million more students at this level by 2020. “Industry does not create (human) wealth, it translates ideas into wealth. Higher education will create this human wealth.”

He said, when “we speak of adding 30 million more to the higher education, it means 1,000 more universities. Government cannot do everything. We need the private sector, foreign education providers, expansion of distance learning and enlarging the online format of learning”.

The Central government believes that while 44 million will pursue higher education, 150 million more will need quality vocational education.

“We are bringing a national vocational qualification framework. The Central Board of Secondary Education will provide an array of courses ranging from automobile to paramedics,” Sibal said, forecasting that education is vital as India will provide huge jobs to the world by 2050.

Chas Edelstein, co-chief executive of Apollo Group, a leading for-profit education conglomerate in the US, said: “India’s knowledge century is a global opportunity.” He also expressed his desire to enter the Indian education space.

Dipak Jain, dean emeritus, Kellogg School of Management, said the quality was there in India and “we need to scale up”, referring to skill training. “India needs more Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) than IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology),” he said.

“I think the future of competition is collaboration,” he added.