On May 30, the Narendra Modi government embarked on its 100-day education agenda. The agenda comprises a new education policy, a Higher Education Commission of India, a new accreditation system and a special drive to fill five lakh faculty positions in institutions of higher education. The urgency of the government shows the higher education system could be in for an overhaul.
Especially over the past decade India’s professional colleges have been ailing due to several reasons such as a sudden spike in the number of these institutions, unaffordable fees, poor quality and lack of jobs. The malaise goes beyond India’s favourite streams—engineering, medicine, law and management—but data for engineering and medicine is all that is readily available.
