Challenges and Possibilities for Higher Education in India During and Beyond the Covid-19 Pandemic

Participation in higher education is expanding throughout the world, a function of urbanisation and of rising social aspirations for higher education. However, the extent of expansion and the quality of the higher education experience are highly variable. India's capacity to reach the NEP target of 50% cohort participation by 2035 will be limited by the rate of urbanisation, and online education cannot make up the gap in the absence of comprehensive Internet infrastructure and the availability of computers. The quality of education is ultimately determined by the political culture, especially the extent to which the state is authentically committed to the common good. The chapter discusses components of a common good approach to government and higher education policy and provision. Turning to the pandemic experience, the chapter argues that on the whole higher education has handled the pandemic better than government, but again the political culture and the conduct of government are decisive, both in relation to public health outcomes and in higher education. The chapter compares the experience of East Asia and Central and Northern Europe, with modest death tolls (especially in East Asia) and stable higher education systems, with the experience of the marketised societies and higher education systems in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the latter countries government commitment to the common good and social discipline have both faltered, and the market-competitive higher education systems have been unstable and chaotic. Unfortunately, India's experience has paralleled the Anglo-American approach not the East Asian approach.