TRENDS IN HIGHER EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY ASSIGNMENT

Education plays an important role in economic and social development of the nation. India's higher education system is the third largest in the world, next to the United States and China. The educational development enable the people to have a better life, which can be achieved only when children's from different groups make avail of equal opportunities of better quality of education. Across the world, peoples belong to several groups fare highly unequal opportunities in education, which pushes behind them economically as well as socially. According to World Development report it is termed as inequality traps. Since Independence, especially higher education extended its reach and coverage significantly. According to Development of education, the universities in India has increased from 27 in the year 1950 – 51 to 368 in the year 2006 – 07, the colleges of Professional Education from 370 to 11,458 during the same period. According to census of India (Various Issues), the literacy rates in India ungreased from 16.67 per cent in 1951 to 72.04 per cent in 2011 i.e., it is increased by 332.15 times. The male literacy rate increased by 229.22 times while female literacy rate increased by 725.47 times. However, the gender gap reduced only marginally by 0.34. In the context, this paper attempts to identify the lacuna in higher education in India.