ABSTRACT
The Indian higher education sector is faced with the daunting challenge of ensuring inclusive and quality education to all in an emerging regime of constrained budgetary allocation for higher education, particularly by state governments, coupled with increasing private sector participation. Further, even though increasing globalisation has opened up opportunities in the higher education space, it has also compounded the severity of these challenges. Overcoming these challenges is also critical to ensure that India attains a sharper competitive edge in the emerging global knowledge economy. However, there is a considerable degree of overlap among the set of identifi ed challenges, i.e., expansion, inclusion and excellence, which need to be studied in a holistic manner.1 A market for higher education is gradually evolving, and recent policy initiatives by the government could be viewed as attempts towards regulating the market. World over, education reform is guided by a pro-market rationale, which involves exposing the sector to competition resulting in improved effi ciency and quality. This paper discusses how the market for education, and in particular higher education, is diff erent and hence needs to be treated with caution in the context of the prevailing socio-economic situation in India. In this context, the paper highlights how delicately the government has to intervene in the market to reconcile the two confl icting issues — education for masses and education for profi t.
