The Budget should focus on empowering private universities. The higher education landscape in India is undergoing a paradigm shift, with private universities beginning to make significant contributions in terms of quality and quantity. Some of them have emerged as top-ranked Indian universities in global rankings, overtaking many well-established public universities in the country.
Over the years, such top-ranked private universities have exceeded expectations in their research calibre, relevance and dedication to solving challenges facing our society as well as the needs of a new emergent India. The Government needs to place full confidence in them and actively promote research at their campuses by making available significant funding opportunities.
In most advanced nations, private universities are major shareholders in, and contributors to, the exceptional quality of their higher education. If India too is to build a world-class higher education system, the Government in the upcoming Budget should seriously look at freeing top private universities from excessive regulatory control, and create a level funding playing field. This is essential if they have to compete, innovate and contribute to meeting the challenges of Make in India, and also adapt to the needs of a rapidly growing, information-centric population.