Role of Mass Media in Higher Education & its Economic Viability - Part - 1 Higher Education - a Top down Approach

Abstract

Higher education provides people with an opportunity to reflect on the critical, social, economic, cultural, moral and spiritual issues facing humanity, it contributes to national development through dissemination of specialized knowledge and skills.It is therefore a crucial factor for survival. Thus with the focus on higher education, India has transformed from an elite system nurtured by colonial route to a mass system attempting to meet the demands of the vibrant democracy during the last five decades since independence.The process of massification is marked by an increase in the number of university level institutions from 18 to 240, of colleges from 590 to about 9000, and of students from 0.2 million to 5.5 million. The transform system is grappling with problem of access, equity and quality. The central and the state governments are struggling to provide support to the fast growing needs of aspirants of higher education. It seems that governments may not be in a position to have much of resources to create and sustain the present system. It is likely that some options have to be adopted to meet the future need of higher education. In this context, the increased reluctance of central and state governments to support higher education is posing a serious problem and indire ctly encouraging the privatization of higher education. Hence we have to evolve and strengthen the system like distance education through open universities where the great potential of mass media could play a vital role with cost -effectiveness. Also the conventional system could make use of mass media to be in tune with the global change. Keeping in mind the importance of higher education as an essential factor for the development of knowledge based Indian society, an attempt has been made to trace the development and role of higher education in India since independence, analyzeits problems and look at the options for the presentmillennium.