Up to college life, it’s all good fun with the bunking, participating in college festivals and hanging out around the city with your gang. But then it’s time to grow up and make life choices. Suddenly, just while tossing that graduation hat in the air, you think, “Am I ready for this?” And so many times, the answer is, “I don’t know.”

Not knowing if you’re ready has as much to do with the outside world as it does with students. It’s a super competitive world; their preparedness to match its competencies determines employment and growth. This is why quality higher education is so pivotal. Simply attending college, passing exams and getting a degree is not enough- it is essential to get trained in several arenas to unlock opportunities for a self-sustainable and good life.

Public universities in India have a long-standing legacy of educating the finest of the finest, but today are saddled with lack of infrastructure and good teachers, political interference, poor governance structures, so on and so forth, thereby becoming impediments to academic and non-academic preparedness of students. And then there are private universities- offering top notch infrastructure and teachers, scholarships, close-knit student communities, rigorous coursework, smaller class size, etc but are also expensive and lack diversity. India has over 500 public universities and over 300 private universities, and yet, few manage to align with global education standards or are featured in rankings with their foreign counterparts. How then, are Indian students going to be prepared to compete at a domestic and international level, achieve their dreams and become successful?

In a recent conversation with Scroll.in, Professor (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, the Founding Vice Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University (Institution of Eminence Deemed To Be University) in India, deconstructed issues with higher education in India and offered direction to think about how public and private universities along with necessary governance and policy can elevate the quality of learning and match global standards of excellence.

Watch the video below to understand the scope, potential and need for Indian universities to gear up for the future of learning.

Click here to know more about OP Jindal Global University and its efforts in advancing higher education to adapt to the needs of students as well as the future.

This is a partnered post.