A comparative study of the Indian tertiary education system with other developing nations

Abstract

The effectiveness of tertiary education in India compared to other developing countries has always been a widely debated topic. This report delves deep into the major factors that quantify the efficacy of tertiary education in India as well as other countries with similar socio-economic statuses. Ever since India gained independence in 1947, multiple policies were created, scrutinized, and ratified that changed the course of the tertiary education landscape here. Even though India’s colonial legacy has provided a distinctively British flavour to the educational system, most recent developments in this domain have been considerably influenced by the United States system, widely acknowledged to have the best academic environment in terms of industry outlook as well as research. The comparative analysis in this report primarily consists of secondary research and provides a comprehensive understanding of the factors in tertiary education India lags behind its peers and the reasons for the same. For quantitative analysis, a regression analysis was done to understand the relationship of some socio-economic variables with the enrolment rate in tertiary education. The report fails to find a statistically significant relationship between overall enrolment in tertiary education and independent variables, including expenditure on tertiary education as a percentage of a country’s GDP, percentage of teachers in tertiary education as a fraction of the total number of teachers, and percentage of enrolment in private tertiary education institutions. Also, the report finds the most significant factor dragging down the Indian institutions in the global university rankings, which is the failure to attract global talent in terms of international faculty and international students when the scores in academic reputation and employer ratings are more or less competitive with the universities which rank higher.