As per All India Survey on of Higher Education (AISHE) conducted by Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India 2018-2019; the higher education system in India consists of 993 Universities out of this 385 Universities are privately managed. There are 39931 colleges out of this 77.8% Colleges are privately managed which cater to 66.4% of the total enrollment. Only 22.2% are Government Colleges in the Country. There are 10725 Stand Alone Institution which are mainly run by Private sector (75.5%). Only 24.53% Stand Alone Institutions are in Government sector. Cumulatively speaking, the private sector of higher education enrolls close to 70% students already. In this context, the marked shift towards private higher education can be analyzed using different perspectives. There is certainly scope for an entire debate on the desirability and merits of privatization and capitalism over socialism and State-sponsored higher education. Such a debate would probably derive most of its theoretical perspective from the discipline of economics. It is also possible to look at privatization of higher education in India from a sociological and cultural perspective, focusing on the bias inherent in private education and how this bias works against certain underprivileged sections of the society. All of these are equally important vantage points from which the whole issue of privatization of higher education can be examined. Additionally, it would be interesting to use the Indian Constitution as a prism to examine some of the contentious issue of privatization in higher education.

Author:
Dr. Ayaz Ahmad, Associate Professor, Unitedworld School of Law (UWSL)

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