Abstract:

The Indian growth experience in the post-1991 period has been a subject of great interest to analysts across the board; from academicians to policy-makers. In response to the economic crisis of 1991, the Government of India introduced a set of comprehensive and radical structural reforms in order to restore macro-economic stability and catapult the economy onto a high growth trajectory. The New Economic Policy (NEP) 1991 laid the foundation for engineering a paradigm shift in the structural and operational framework of the economy from being one that was controlled and regulated through a centrally administered planning process to one characterized by an increasing degree of market-orientation. The progress of the economy thereafter may be termed as “mixed”. Despite the accentuation in the incidence of poverty, unemployment, the scale of inequality and the increased vulnerability of the economy to external pressures it is widely accepted that the fundamentals of the economy are quite strong .
In assessing the sustainability of India’s growth trajectory, there is a need to consider the factors that are likely to propel growth vis-à-vis those likely to constrain growth. The new endogeneous growth models have emphasized the complimentarity of the processes of physical and human capital formation to ensure sustained economic growth. Given the strong correlation between education, human development and economic growth, it may be argued that a well-balanced, sound, and dynamic education system lies at the core of the social infrastructure-building process engineered to accommodate the changing needs of and adequately address the concerns of a progressing society and a growing economy.
This paper reviews the qualitative and quantitative progress registered by the higher education sector in India with respect to some selected indicators. The paper argues that the objective of public policy in India to improve Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education confronts two important challenges- Firstly, despite its rapid expansion, current institutional capacity is inadequate to support higher levels of GER and secondly, the drive towards massification of higher education has not exhibited adequate concern for the quality issue which in turn poses as a severe constraint on the vertical progress of the sector.

Conclusion:
The new endogeneous growth models have emphasized the need to allocate available resources to engineer simultaneous and proportionate expansion of both physical and human capital base. This implies that investment in human capital formation through the instruments of education, R&D and innovations is an important determinant of the sustainability of the growth process. However, the paper suggests that a number of deficiencies continue to constrain the quantitative and qualitative progress of the higher education sector in India.

A useful strategy employed by some developing countries to address these issues related to the higher education sector is the adoption of a policy towards internationalization of the sector. While there are reasons to believe that this move could serve useful in the Indian context also, there is a need to undertake a detailed cost-benefit analysis to adequately address the concerns arising out of internationalization. Failing this, the net result would be a further stratification of the already fragmented higher education sector in the country.