Higher Education Cell — Centre for the Study of Culture and Society

About the HE Cell:

HEC Logo India’s Higher Education (HE) system is one of the largest in the world, including over 300 universities and thousands of colleges. Access to HE is a crucial issue, with only 7 to 8% of the relevant age group enrolled in HE institutions. The 2006 CSCS Strategy Recommendations Paper on HE pointed out that the three key locations of HE – the research centre, the university, and the undergraduate college – seldom have strong connections with one another, and have structurally been devised to stay apart. Envisioning a strategic convergence of these three fields could redefine the structure and role of higher education in India. The Paper recommended that such convergence, in key areas such as curriculum building, research and teacher training should form the cornerstone of interventions in this sector. It drew attention to several recent developments in the field, including moves towards privatization and greater autonomy as well as the emergence of new kinds of institutions. The Paper emphasized the relevance of curriculum building and teacher training for both private and state-supported institutions which would increasingly create new spaces open to experimentation in curricular innovations and institutional collaborations across the higher education sector.

The Higher Education Cell-CSCS (supported by the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust) came into existence in July 2007. It engages with the Higher Education sector through its Research Initiatives (the outcomes of which include Analytical Reports/Reviews and Idea Incubation for the sector); Institutional Collaborations; Documentation and Archiving, and Grant Management for the Trusts. The Research Initiatives include field-impacting and discipline-impacting initiatives. Globalization and Higher Education, General Education in Comparative Perspective, Regional Language Resources, and Social Justice are the areas selected for field impact, while the disciplinary areas are Integrated Science Education, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Science and Economics.

HE Cell Database

Strategy paper on higher education

Strategy Paper

Analytical Reports, Studies and Reviews

HE news from the media archive

Click here to get news, materials and articles from the CSCS Media Archive.

The CSCS Media Archive is a multiple database compilation intended exclusively for purposes of study, research and review. The link above will show the listed articles and news related to higher education.

Conferences, Workshops and Consultations

a) Future of Higher Education
Date: 20-21 February 2006
Report

b) Consultation on Higher Education in India
Date: 16-17 November 2006
Report

c) General Education Consultation: "General Education in Comparative Perspective: Legacies, Transformations and Innovations"
Date: 21-22 July 2007.
Participants
Report

d) Regional language Consultation
Date: 20th February 2008
Concept Note
Participants
Resource papers