Ensuring Quality in Indian Education: Challenges and Reforms

India’s higher education system is one of the largest in the world – over 56,000 institutions serving 40 million students, supported by 15 lakh teachers. That scale is genuinely impressive. But size alone does not equal quality. Behind these numbers lie persistent governance problems, a significant gap in global academic standing, and an urgent need for structural reform. For anyone working in or studying education policy, understanding these issues is not optional – it is essential.

What quality assurance in higher education actually means
Governance issues: when politics enters the classroom
The NAAC accreditation crisis
Regulatory fragmentation and overlapping authority
Lack of global recognition: a gap between size and standing
The research funding gap
Faculty shortages and brain drain
The need for structural reforms
NEP 2020 and the vision for autonomy
Reforming accreditation: from NAAC to a new model
Funding mechanisms and the Institutions of Eminence scheme
Graduate employability and curriculum relevance
Progress is real, but the work is far from done

What quality assurance in higher education actually means

Quality assurance (QA) in higher education refers to the systematic processes through which institutions maintain and improve their academic standards. In India, the primary body responsible for this is the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), established in 1994 under the University Grants Commission (UGC). NAAC evaluates universities and colleges on criteria such as teaching quality, research output, infrastructure, and governance, and awards institutions a grade from A++ to D.

In principle, this framework should ensure that students receive a consistent standard of education across institutions. In practice, however, the system faces serious challenges – from corruption in the accreditation process itself to underfunding and political interference – that undermine its effectiveness.

Governance issues: when politics enters the classroom

One of the most pressing threats to quality assurance in Indian higher education is political interference. Concerns over increasing politicisation in higher education institutions have been growing, with critics pointing to its impact on academic freedom, faculty recruitment, curriculum design, and resource allocation. Controversies around the appointment of Governors as Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors have repeatedly come under scrutiny for undermining institutional independence.

This is not a fringe concern. The politicisation of higher education directly compromises institutional autonomy – the freedom of universities to hire faculty on merit, design curricula without external pressure, and allocate resources based on academic need. When these decisions are influenced by political considerations, academic integrity is the first casualty.

The NAAC accreditation crisis

The governance problem runs deeper than appointment controversies. The accreditation system itself has been rocked by credibility concerns. In February 2025, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested the chairman and six other members of a NAAC inspection committee after uncovering a bribery scheme in which assessors allegedly received cash, gold, laptops, and mobile phones in exchange for favourable A++ ratings for higher education institutions. Raids were conducted across 20 locations including Chennai, Bengaluru, and New Delhi, leading to the seizure of approximately ₹37 lakh and several electronic items.

This was not an isolated incident. In February 2023, NAAC’s own chairperson had alleged that the accreditation process was being manipulated, resulting in questionable grades for some institutions. A subsequent inquiry found that NAAC’s IT system had been compromised, and assessors were being appointed arbitrarily. The chairperson eventually resigned. These developments raise a critical question: if the very institution tasked with guaranteeing quality is itself compromised, what does quality assurance actually mean?

Regulatory fragmentation and overlapping authority

Governance in Indian higher education is also complicated by a fragmented regulatory structure. Multiple agencies – state governments, professional councils, and affiliating universities – with overlapping functions and stringent rules have resulted in fragmentation of the system. The UGC has struggled to effectively monitor quality and implement standards across such a sprawling network. The affiliation model, where thousands of colleges are tied to a single university, further dilutes institutional autonomy and often prevents colleges from designing curricula that reflect their specific strengths or local needs.

Lack of global recognition: a gap between size and standing

India’s higher education system is the second-largest contributor to the QS World University Rankings: Asia 2026, with 294 institutions ranked – a twelve-fold increase from just 24 in 2016. Seven Indian institutes are now among Asia’s top 100, with IIT Delhi securing the 59th position in Asia. In the QS World University Rankings 2026, India has 54 institutions featured, making it the fourth most represented country globally, after the United States, United Kingdom, and China. This is real progress.

But context matters. Progress in representation is not the same as excellence in standing. Most Indian institutions continue to lag behind in faculty-student ratio, research impact, and global reputation – the metrics that differentiate world-class universities from merely large ones. Indian universities are strong in engineering and technology, but their presence in arts, natural sciences, and humanities remains limited in global rankings.

The research funding gap

A significant part of this recognition gap comes down to research investment. India’s R&D spending as a percentage of GDP stands at just 0.64%, far behind China (2.4%), Germany (3.1%), South Korea (4.8%), and the United States (3.5%). Two decades ago, China’s gross expenditure on research and development was comparable to India’s. Since then, it has quadrupled – and China now has four institutions in the global top ten by some measures.

Chinese higher education policy has focused on incentivising research and innovation, with more than two dozen research agencies actively involved in higher education policymaking – mechanisms largely absent in India. The comparison is instructive not to diminish India’s achievements, but to show what sustained, targeted investment in research can achieve over a generation.

Within India itself, the funding gap between institutions is stark. Leading public institutions like IISc Bengaluru receive around $133 million in sponsored research funding, while private universities showing high publication growth receive only a fraction of that. This disparity has led some private institutions to adopt problematic shortcuts – incentivising publication volume over publication quality, a trend that inflates metrics without genuinely advancing knowledge.

Faculty shortages and brain drain

Global recognition is also hampered by a severe shortage of qualified faculty. As of 2023, over 30% of teaching positions were vacant in 45 central universities across India. Even premier institutions are not immune – IITs and IIMs report faculty vacancy rates of 40% and 31% respectively. Talented academics continue to leave for better-compensated and more research-enabling positions abroad or in the private sector, a brain drain that directly affects the research output and teaching quality on which global rankings depend.

The need for structural reforms

The challenges described above are not new, and neither are the conversations about fixing them. What is different now is the policy ambition – and the distance between that ambition and ground-level implementation.

NEP 2020 and the vision for autonomy

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 explicitly acknowledges that regulation of higher education has been too heavy-handed, calling for a complete overhaul to make regulation “light but tight.” It proposes replacing the UGC with a Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) with four independent verticals handling regulation, accreditation, funding, and standard-setting separately – a move designed to remove concentration of power from any single body.

NEP 2020 also envisions a phased transition from affiliated colleges to autonomous institutions, allowing universities to design their own curricula, hire faculty based on merit, and pursue research agendas without regulatory interference. The policy supports the idea of Multidisciplinary Education and Research Universities (MERUs), comparable in ambition to the IITs and IIMs, to demonstrate what interdisciplinary education can look like at scale.

Reforming accreditation: from NAAC to a new model

On the accreditation front, NEP 2020 proposes replacing NAAC with a new National Accreditation Council (NAC), which would function as a meta-accrediting body overseeing an independent ecosystem of specialised accrediting agencies. Under this model, accreditation would be based primarily on basic norms, public self-disclosure, good governance, and outcomes – rather than the current system’s more opaque processes.

NAAC itself has begun introducing reforms. A new Binary Accreditation System is being introduced – a simplified yes/no certification of baseline institutional quality, conducted entirely online, eliminating physical visits and reducing administrative burden. This is a meaningful practical step toward widening accreditation coverage, given that a significant proportion of India’s universities and colleges remain unaccredited. However, critics note that removing physical visits also removes an important verification mechanism – something to watch as the system evolves.

Funding mechanisms and the Institutions of Eminence scheme

Structural reform also requires rethinking how funding flows. The Institutions of Eminence (IoE) scheme provides up to ₹1,000 crore to selected public institutions to help them reach world-class status – a targeted approach that has shown some results, as evidenced by IIT Delhi’s and IISc Bengaluru’s improved rankings. But this top-down, elite-focused model leaves the vast majority of state universities chronically underfunded.

Schemes like Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) and PM-USHA focus on equity-based funding for state universities, recognising that quality cannot be concentrated only in a handful of premier institutions. The real test, however, is implementation – timely release of funds, reduction of regulatory overload, and genuine capacity building at the institutional level.

Graduate employability and curriculum relevance

Quality assurance is ultimately judged by outcomes. On this measure, there is significant work to do. Only 45% of engineering graduates are considered to meet industry standards, and overall graduate employability in India hovers around 47%. The affiliation model has weakened institutions that could have otherwise excelled, locking them into rigid, centrally prescribed curricula that don’t keep pace with changing industry needs or global academic trends.

A genuine quality assurance framework must connect curriculum design, faculty development, research output, and graduate outcomes in a coherent system – not treat them as separate concerns managed by separate agencies with overlapping mandates.

Progress is real, but the work is far from done

India’s trajectory in global rankings is upward, its policy ambition with NEP 2020 is bold, and there is genuine momentum in areas like digital education through platforms such as SWAYAM and the National Digital Library. These are not trivial achievements for a system of this scale and diversity. But good intentions and expanding enrolment numbers cannot substitute for the harder work of fixing governance, ensuring accreditation integrity, reducing political interference, and directing sustained funding toward research and teaching quality across all institutions – not just elite ones.

The gap between India’s potential and its current performance in quality assurance is not inevitable. It is a policy choice. And that means it can be changed.

What do you think? Should India focus its quality assurance reforms on fixing existing institutions like NAAC, or is a complete structural overhaul – as proposed under NEP 2020 – the more effective path? And given that political interference remains a documented problem, what practical mechanisms can genuinely protect academic autonomy in publicly funded universities?

References

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Table of Contents

What quality assurance in higher education actually means 🔗

Governance issues: when politics enters the classroom 🔗

The NAAC accreditation crisis 🔗

Regulatory fragmentation and overlapping authority 🔗

Lack of global recognition: a gap between size and standing 🔗

The research funding gap 🔗

Faculty shortages and brain drain 🔗

The need for structural reforms 🔗

NEP 2020 and the vision for autonomy 🔗

Reforming accreditation: from NAAC to a new model 🔗

Funding mechanisms and the Institutions of Eminence scheme 🔗

Graduate employability and curriculum relevance 🔗

Progress is real, but the work is far from done 🔗