ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of higher education in South Asia and examines how its role has changed over time due to both endogenous and exogenous factors. It explains that their formative years, South Asian universities closely followed the British system of higher education. Even in those South Asian countries where education expanded rapidly after decolonization, inadequate public funds have not helped to improve the quality of education. The development of modern higher education in South Asia has been integrally connected to Western colonial expansion in the region. The spread of modern education was both an effect as well as a cause of social, economic, political and cultural change in the region, at least from the mid nineteenth century onwards. Subsequent democratization of education in South Asian countries was a direct assault on elitism associated with Westernized educational institutions in post-colonial South Asia.
