Can our national laboratories become research universities?

摘要

The Higher Education scene has suddenly come to the forefront of news. From merely proclaiming policies on higher education over the last few decades, the government has now started taking specific measures. Education reforms are being introduced in the legislation. Two apex committee reports1'2 have given rise to five legislative bills to be introduced in the parliament3. Government approvals have been given to almost doubling the number of IITs, IIMs, NITs and Central Universities and more such professional institutions. All these dramatic movements in the last couple of years have been primarily due to the concern acute shortage of appropriately educated manpower at all levels, from trained technicians to PhDs. The expectations of the youth seeking higher education are not being met. For social and economic reasons, access to education at all levels is becoming difficult. In this article, we will only focus on the question of access to higher education and the role of a university.