Page 44 - EW-January-2026

Expert Comment

Why higher education

reforms are stalled

ROY ANIRUDDHA

ONSIDER THIS PARADOX: INDIA RANKS 38TH India has 52,000 colleges, 1,338 universi-
on the 2025 Global Innovation Index, below Viet-
nam and Thailand. China, meanwhile, has entered ties, 43 million students and certifies 1.5
Cthe Top 10 for the first time ever. Yet India has million engineering graduates annually.
52,000 colleges, 1,338 universities, 43 million enrolled
students, and produces 1.5 million engineering graduates The rankings whisper a different story:
annually. The numbers scream abundance. The rankings India is a factory of credentials not of
whisper a different story: India’s academy is a factory of
credentials, not a factory of breakthrough thinking and in- breakthrough thinking and innovation
novation.
This is a design problem rooted in governance failures
that have persisted for decades. India’s higher education people with degrees but not enough manpower with profi-
system wasn’t built to produce innovators; it was built to ciency.” A decade later, that scenario has arrived. The solu-
prompt compliance. And the bureaucratic machinery re- tions exist. What’s missing is accelerated execution.
sponsible for this stagnation remains largely intact, with R&D funding maze. Here’s a number that should shock
reforms moving at a glacial pace despite widespread ac- every policymaker: India spends 0.7 percent of GDP on
knowledgement that change is urgent. R&D (public and private combined). The US spends 3.5
Walk into most Indian engineering colleges and you’ll percent. China spends 2.68 percent. But there’s a deeper
find curricula that would have felt dated in 2005. Students issue than budget: the government’s R&D apparatus is frac-
solve textbook problems designed by government commit- tured across three separate departments that function as
tees in Delhi, problems that bear no semblance to what isolated fiefdoms.
they’ll encounter in real-world workplaces. They graduate The Department of Science and Technology (DST)
having written zero lines of production code, designed zero oversees basic science; the Department of Scientific and
actual structures, and solved zero market problems. They Industrial Research (DSIR) manages CSIR, India’s largest
know about technology. They don’t know how to create it. publicly funded R&D organization with 37 laboratories; the
The culprits have grandiose names: University Grants Department of Biotechnology (DBT) focuses on life scienc-
Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical es. In 2024-25, these three departments received Rs 16,628
Education (AICTE). Established in 1956 and 1945 respec- crore combined — but allocation structure reveals dysfunc-
tively, these bodies were designed for an era when India tion. DST gets 48 percent, DSIR gets 38 percent, and DBT
needed centralized control to build an education system gets 14 percent. That’s not integrated strategy; it’s territorial
from scratch. That mission has long been accomplished. carve-up. A biotech startup needing regulatory approvals
Yet these institutions remain trapped in their original man- must navigate DBT for genetic engineering approval, DCGI
dates, operating as gatekeepers rather than facilitators. (under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) for clini-
A 2019 analysis by legal experts found that numerous cal trials, and DSIR if CSIR institutions are involved. No
HEIs (higher education institutions) fall under dual juris- single window. Three different bureaucracies, three differ-
diction, with UGC and AICTE often making contradictory ent timelines, three different sets of requirements.
demands. When conflict arises, nobody knows who wins. China’s approach is radically different. State planning
This isn’t efficiency; it’s institutional paralysis disguised as agencies identified semiconductors, AI, and renewable en-
regulation. In Germany, Fraunhofer Institutes operate flex- ergy as strategic priorities. Coordinated funding was chan-
ibly, allowing universities to redesign curricula quarterly neled through multiple agencies with clear inter-agency
based on industry needs. In India, a curriculum change re- communication. The result: distributed innovation hubs
quires committee approvals that can take 18 months. in Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Chengdu, each developing
Recognition of the problem. In 2017, the government specialized capabilities. India aspires to become a semi-
proposed replacing both bodies with a unified Higher conductor hub but hasn’t created the funding coordination
Education Empowerment Regulation Agency (HEERA). or inter-departmental alignment required.
In 2018, a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Regulatory labyrinth. Here’s what nobody wants to dis-
Bill was introduced. The National Education Policy 2020 cuss directly: India’s regulatory environment doesn’t just
explicitly addressed UGC-AICTE overlap as a core prob- slow innovation — it kills it before it starts. And fragmenta-
lem. Yet eight years later, both bodies function largely tion is constitutional.
unchanged. The policy frameworks for reform have been A biotech startup wanting to conduct clinical trials re-
articulated. Implementation has stalled. President Pranab quires approval from the Drugs Controller General of In-
Mukherjee warned in 2016: “If not reversed quickly, we will dia (DCGI) under the Ministry of Health. But if the drug
land ourselves in a scenario of having a large number of involves genetic engineering, the Genetic Engineering Ap-

44 EDUCATIONWORLD JANUARY 2026