FICCI-EY index to promote collaboration among states for higher education

In context to the 2013 EY-FICCI report on "Higher Education in India

However, the scale and complexity of the individual states, calls for a state specific approach to achieving this vision for India. All states need to adopt a transformative and innovative approach across all levers of higher education: from curricula and pedagogy to the use of technology to partnerships, governance and funding, to become globally relevant and competitive.

Briefing the media at the 11th FICCI Higher Education Summit 2015, Mohandas Pai, Chairman, FICCI Higher Education Committee, Dr. Indira J Parikh, Co-Chair FICCI Higher Education Committee amongst others were present at the event.

Nikhil Rajpal, Education Sector Leader, Ernst and Young said, "EY-FICCI Index has been developed with the intent to foster a healthy competition and promote collaboration among states to achieve the Vision 2030 goals. It provides an objective current status of higher education in the states/UTs and helps them in defining a roadmap to align their state priorities towards the overall Vision 2030."

"It relatively ranks each state as compared to the best performing state under the following five parameters that includes access, equity, relevance and quality, governance and funding and excellence and positions them across four different quadrants in two dimensions across access and equity and relevance, he added.

While the state governments are taking several measures to improve their higher education systems, there is need for them to play a more active role in transforming the higher education system. The states still struggling with basic challenges can learn from the ones having strengths in those areas, while those having above average performance can try to emulate international best practices to become educational hubs.