The Challenges Before Higher Education in the 21st Century

This book deals with the challenges before higher education in India under three important section: Structural, Managerial and Gandhian.  Structural Challenges are presented in six articles on educational priorities in the 21st century India; global development perspectives, social development through quality education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels and the need for re-vamping education at the lower levels, inter-disciplinary study of educational and environmental development issues and the special challenges before professional graduates, especially engineers and doctors.  Section B examines the outstanding challenges in management and economic aspects of higher education such as the system of affiliation, the economics of higher education in Central and State universities (the Justice Punnayya Committee Report), the strengths and weaknesses of the present examination system and the responses of prominent citizens obtained from an educational survey and above all, the need for implementing the Credit and Semester System (CSS) in higher education.  The final section in the book presents the important ideas of the Father of the Nation and their relevance in this era of LPG (liberalization, privatizaiton and globalization).  All the 19 essays in the book are based on the work experience, research and reading done by the author in the educational and administrative field both in India and abroad.  They are also the results of his firsthand observations and experiences at the universities, colleges and schools in Europe, North America and South and Southeast Asia.  With almost half a century of experience in teaching-cum-research and writing in universities and colleges.  Dr. J.V. Vil’anilam, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, has raised several fundamental issues challenging the system of education in this era of fast changes.  This book will be of immense use to teachers and student-teachers.  In Kerala alone, there are close to 50,000 students of pedagogy seeking admission to the B.Ed. Course; in the whole of India, there are several hundreds of thousands.