Today, India’s education sector remains a victim of poor policies, restrictive regulations and orthodoxy. Despite being enrolled in schools, children are not learning adequately. Increasingly, parents are seeking alternatives through private inputs in school and tuition. Students are dropping out from secondary school in spite of high financial returns of secondary education, and those who do complete it have inferior conceptual knowledge. Higher education is over-regulated and under-governed, keeping away serious private providers and reputed global institutes. Graduates from high schools, colleges and universities are not readily employable, and few are willing to pay for skill development. Ironically, the Right to Education Act, if strictly enforced, will result in closure of thousands of non-state schools, and millions of poor children will be left without access to education. Eleventh in the series, India Infrastructure Report 2012 discusses challenges in the education sector — elementary, secondary, higher, and vocational — and explores strategies for constructive change and opportunities for the private sector. It suggests that immediate steps are required to reform the sector to reap the benefits from India’s ‘demographic dividend’ due to a rise in the working age population. Result of a collective effort led by the IDFC Foundation, this Report brings together a range of perspectives from academics, researchers and practitioners committed to enhancing educational practices. It will be an invaluable resource for policymakers, researchers and corporates.

OECD's 2014 Economic Survey of India examines recent economic developments, policies and prospects. Special chapters cover health, the manufacturing sector and economic participation of women.

Drawing on empirical, interdisciplinary research, this book presents a critical review of some of the major issues that are of interest to researchers, policymakers and planners in developing as well as advanced countries, including specifically in India. It provides an in-depth review of some of the major development policy issues in education in general, and in India in particular, over the past 2-3 decades. Besides presenting an overview of the educational developments in India that reflects issues such as growth, equity, efficiency, foreign aid, decentralization, center-state relations, financing, and cost recovery, the book puts forward in-depth analyses of education poverty, interrelations between education and poverty, low level of outcomes in elementary education, effects of structural adjustment policies and approaches on education, south-south cooperation, etc. It also critically discusses changes in policies relating to financing higher education, external assistance for education, and how the growth of private higher education is affecting society at large. The dichotomy between public policy and action is also highlighted in many chapters. On the whole, while the importance of education is being increasingly recognized, the state does not seem to be as willing to foot the bill for education as the households and even the private sector. Occasionally contrasting with international evidence on, for example, financing higher education, private higher education, or the effects of neo-liberal policies, the book offers an interesting read for a wider audience.

This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the critical dimensions of higher education in India. It focuses on the growth and expansion of private higher education and public policy. The volume discusses issues related to the growth of for-profit and not-for-profit private higher education institutions and their implications at the policy level. It outlines the role of such institutions towards the internationalization and global ranking of the Indian higher education system. The book discusses the trends in internationalisation adopted by private higher education institutions and explains the resulting impact on aspects such as the diversity of programs, skill formation, employability, pedagogic practices, standards, curriculum development, and research and development, as well as the wider externalities in terms of promoting India’s soft power and international relations with other countries. While outlining the challenges of Open Distance Learning (ODL) and online education in India, the book also discusses the use of ICT, OER, and MOOCS among others to address the challenges of the ODL system. This volume will be of interest to teachers, students, and researchers of education, public policy, political science, international relations, law, sociology, economics, and political economy. It will also be useful for academicians, policymakers, and anyone interested in the internationalization of Indian Higher Education.

This book provides the latest research findings on the ways to revive and sustain higher growth rates in India.

The Wiley Handbook of Global Educational Reform examines educational reform from a global perspective. Comprised of approximately 25 original and specially commissioned essays, which together interrogate educational reform from a critical global and transnational perspective, this volume explores a range of topics and themes that fully investigate global convergences in educational reform policies, ideologies, and practices. The Handbook probes the history, ideology, organization, and institutional foundations of global educational reform movements; actors, institutions, and agendas; and local, national, and global education reform trends. It further examines the “new managerialism” in global educational reform, including the standardization of national systems of educational governance, curriculum, teaching, and learning through the rise of new systems of privatization, accountability, audit, big-data, learning analytics, biometrics, and new technology-driven adaptive learning models. Finally, it takes on the subjective and intersubjective experiential dimensions of the new educational reforms and alternative paths for educational reform tied to the ethical imperative to reimagine education for human flourishing, justice, and equality. An authoritative, definitive volume and the first global take on a subject that is grabbing headlines as well as preoccupying policy makers, scholars, and teachers around the world Edited by distinguished leaders in the field Features contributions from an illustrious list of experts and scholars The Wiley Handbook of Global Educational Reform will be of great interest to scholars and graduate students of education throughout the world as well as the policy makers who can institute change.

Businesses, philanthropies and non-profit entities are increasingly successful in capturing public funds to support private provision of schooling in developed and developing countries. Coupled with market-based reforms that include weak regulation, control over workforces, standardization of processes and economies of scale, private provision of schooling is often seen to be convenient for both public authorities and businesses. This book examines how the public subsidization of these forms of private education affects quality, equality and the realization of human rights. With original research from leading experts, The State, Business and Educationsheds light on the privatization of education in fragile circumstances. It illustrates the ways in which private actors have expanded their involvement in education as a business, and shows the influence of policy borrowing on the spread of for-profit education. Case studies from Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India and Syrian refugee camps illustrate the ways in which private actors have expanded their involvement in education as a business. This book will be of interest not only to academics and students of international and comparative education, but also to education development professionals in both the private and public sectors, with its empirical assessment of case studies, and careful consideration of the lessons to be learned from each. Contributors include: M. Avelar, J. Barkan, M. de Koning, A. Draxler, C. Fontdevila, S. Kamat, F. Menashy, M.C. Moschetti, E. Richardson, B. Schulte, C.A. Spreen, G. Steiner-Khamsi, A. Verger, Z. Zakharia, A. Zancajo