The University and Higher Education is faced with challenges. The pressure on higher education is increasing day by day. The goal of moving towards equality is been reiterated as in the National Policy on Education, 1986. Several social, economic, administrative and other reasons seem to act together as hindering access to equity in higher education. Factors like regional imbalances, rural-urban divide, gender disparity, economic hardship, etc. are some of the major problems being faced by higher education.
There is tremendous imbalance in access to higher education in urban and rural areas. Most of the colleges and universities, are located in urban or semi- urban areas. Similarly, the gender disparity in higher education in India is yet another area of concern. Large sections of our population, therefore, are denied access to learning for historical, geographical, economic, cultural, religious, and other reasons. The Union Government's expenditure on higher education to various states is also grossly uneven. Another distinctive feature of regional disparity is visible in the number of colleges/institutions located in different States. Special focus should also be there for improving access and equity in remote regions and geographically disadvantaged places. Prior to independence, the growth of institutions of higher education in India was very slow and diversification in areas of studies was very limited. After independence, the number of institutions increased significantly. There are today, 214 universities and equivalent institutions including 116 general universities, 12 science and technology universities, 7 open universities, 33 agricultural universities, 5 women's universities, 11 language universities, and 11 medical universities.
While higher education in India has achieved remarkable progress in terms of no. of institutions, teacher's enrollment, Infrastructure, it is strongly felt that there are still number of challenges that need to be addressed urgently such as making the higher education equitable, meaning thereby to remove the regional and social imbalances prevailing in the access to higher education. The irony of the whole situation is that despite all the efforts being made still this problem remains as much a problem as it was yesterday. This paper is an effort to focus on the causes of imbalances in education such as historical, geographical, Lingual, economical, social, demographical factors the roots of which are embedded from the time immemorial that even today it remains as much a problem.
