© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 299
J. Jung et al. (eds.), Researching Higher Education in Asia, Higher Education in
Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4989-7_17
Chapter 17
Education Research and Emergence of Higher
Education as a Field of Study in India
N.V. Varghese
Abstract The expansion and massification of the higher education made the sector
a large and complex organization requiring professional expertise and specialized
knowledge for managing it. This resulted in many countries in the emergence of
higher education as a separate field of study producing new knowledge and develop-
ing academic study programmes leading to award of degrees in higher education.
Although India has the second largest higher education system in the world, research
and study programmes on higher education are not very common. The education
departments of universities in India offer a large number of study programmes in
education which are essentially oriented to prepare students to teach at post-primary
levels of education. The university departments rarely address issues related to
higher education in their teaching and research programmes. Research on higher
education is carried out mostly by social science departments in the universities and
research institutions. In the absence of study programmes and research on higher
education, the paper argues that higher education has not yet emerged as a separate
field of study in India.
Introduction
For centuries higher education remained a small and elite sector peripheral to eco-
nomic and social development of nations. From the mid-twentieth century onwards,
public interest and public funding to the sector increased. While economic rational-
ity helped continued public support for higher education in the developed countries,
the thrust on self-reliance defined the rationality to invest in higher education in the
newly independent developing countries. By the 1980s, it was realized that invest-
ing in knowledge is economically rewarding and higher education emerged as a
major institution playing a crucial role in promoting economic growth in the
The views expressed in this paper are of the author, and they should not necessarily be attributed
to the organization where he is employed.
N.V. Varghese (*)
Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE/NUEPA), New Delhi, India
e-mail: [email protected]