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People often talk about Indian higher education in terms of growth, with more universities, students, and degrees. But behind this rise in numbers is a slow decline in the purpose of education. The current system has a big problem with balancing learning and speed, intellectual patience and management efficiency. This is especially clear in how doctorate education is treated, where the logic of business is becoming more important than the logic of scholarship.
In the last two decades, market-oriented thinking has transformed higher education in India. Universities are pushed to operate like businesses: make the most of their resources, expand enrollment, streamline processes, and demonstrate quantitative “impact.” Efficiency is not intrinsically bad; however, its unexamined use in education has resulted in misconceptions. Learning is being told to proceed faster than comprehension can keep up.
Undergraduate education has become a business. Degrees are designed to let students move through systems rapidly rather than delving deeply into subjects. Large classes, overburdened professors, and standardized testing all prioritize task completion above learning. Students complete school on schedule, but they do not always possess the intellectual assurance that a college education used to provide. The degree is a more dependable means to demonstrate attendance than competency.
This tendency is mirrored by postgraduate programmes. Master’s degrees are widely available, touted as rapid upgrades in a competitive employment market. Specialisation is offered, but depth is uncommon. Curricula are compacted, reading lists are cut, and evaluation is simplified to improve throughput. The purpose appears to be producing credentials that can be advertised and consumed, rather than cultivating knowledge.
Doctoral degrees, historically the most patient type of academic preparation, have not been spared. PhD programs are increasingly driven by deadlines, publication counts, and performance indicators. While accountability is important, the existing system sometimes mixes production with intellectual development. Doctoral candidates are pressured to publish early and frequently, sometimes before their ideas have completely developed. Research risks are discouraged since they jeopardize timelines. The slow effort of thinking, editing, and failing—essential to real scholarship—is regarded as inefficient. This change has big but not obvious effects. When the main goal of a doctorate program is to get done quickly, the first thing to go is usually uniqueness. Research questions become safer, more specific, and more predictable, not because they have a lot of intellectual potential, but because they are likely to be finished quickly. Young scholars learn early on that it’s better to add another short paper to their CV than to spend years trying to figure out a hard idea. Over time, this creates a culture of academic uniformity, where new ideas are seen as dangerous and intellectual ambition is silently punished.
This setting also changes what the boss does. Supervisors are becoming more like managers who are responsible for meeting the goals of the institution instead of mentors who help students deal with uncertainty. There are many ways to measure their success, such as how many people finish their work, how many articles they publish, and how much money they make from grants. In this management model, it’s harder to understand why people spend time in open-ended conversations, close reading, or disagreeing with each other about ideas. The connection to the doctorate, which was once important for developing independent thought, is in danger of becoming transactional.
The stress doesn’t go away after you get your PhD. When academics first start out, they join a system where numbers like the number of publications, impact factors, and citation counts determine who gets hired and promoted. It’s harder to judge things like how good a teacher is, how generous they are with their ideas, and how long their research plans are, so they don’t get as much attention. As a result, academics continue to prioritize output over insight, thus maintaining the fundamental principles that shaped their doctoral education.
There is also a growing gap between form and substance in Indian higher education. Universities love to brag about their high rankings, global partnerships, and rapid growth, but they often forget about the things that make real scholarship possible. Libraries still don’t get enough money, teachers still have a lot of work to do, and administrators have to do more and more work. In these circumstances, requiring students and professors to produce world-class research expeditiously is not only impractical; it is intellectually detrimental.
About the author: Anusreeta Dutta is a columnist and climate researcher with experience in political analysis, ESG research, and energy policy.
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.