NITI Aayog has launched a very important policy report titled Expanding Quality Higher Education through States and State Public Universities. The report was released by key dignitaries, including NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Suman Bery, Member (Education) Dr. Vinod Kumar Paul, the CEO Sh. BVR Subrahmanyam, Secretary of Department of Higher Education Sh. Vineet Joshi, and Dr. (Mrs.) Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), held on February 10, 2025, at New Delhi.

This landmark report happens to be the first policy document in the sector of higher education comprehensively devoted to States and State Public Universities (SPUs). It provides a detailed quantitative analysis of vital indicators across such key themes as quality, funding and financing, governance, and employability over the past decade. The document is the product of an extensive consultation process that involved a large number of stakeholders ranging from officials of State Governments from above 20 States and Union Territories, vice-chancellors of 50 SPUs, senior academicians, to chairpersons of various State Higher Education Councils.

Addressing the gathering, NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Suman Bery stressed the vital importance of public universities in the education systems of the world, referring to practices in the U.S.A. and Brazil. While India has its own elite institutions such as IITs, Bery nonetheless stressed that SPUs must also aspire to the highest standards. The Vice Chairman pointed out that it was the mandate of NITI Aayog, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to develop evidence-based research, leaving the implementation to the ministries concerned. He expressed hope that the central government and different states would adopt and implement the report’s recommendations with zeal.

In regard to the report, Dr. Vinod Kumar Paul indicated a contextualization of the report within the NEP 2020 and Viksit Bharat 2047 vision of India. Given that approximately 80 percent of higher education in India is in SPUs, he highlighted the extreme importance of reforms to create a robust human capital base and articulate India as a knowledge destination worldwide.

NITI Aayog CEO Sh. BVR Subrahmanyam pointed out how NEP 2020 sets out an ambitious target to double the enrollment for higher education by 2035 with an estimated tally of nearly nine crore students. He estimated that about seven crore of these students would essentially still be practicing their course in SPUs, underlining the urgent need for these institutions to evolve not just from the access to education but to a fact of imparting quality higher education worldwide. He stated that the report has made landmark contributions with NEP 2020 to make a paradigm shift in India’s higher education landscape.

Sh. Vineet Joshi, Secretary of the Department of Higher Education, highlighted key initiatives announced in the recent budget to bolster higher education. These include the selection of 10,000 Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF), an addition of 6,500 seats in second-generation IITs, and the launch of the Bharatiya Bhasha textbook scheme for the promotion of regional language education. PM-USHA’s allocation of INR 13,000 crores for the period of 2023-24 to 2025-26 also came up for discussion, with INR 100 crores allocated to each SPU for the purpose of transformation into Model Educational Regional Universities (MERUs). Joshi expressed confidence that these initiatives would be instrumental in changing the face of SPUs.

Dr. (Mrs.) Pankaj Mittal, Secretary General of AIU, stated that the report required intensive debates and consultations. She added that the report identifies three foremost problems laid out frequently by vice-chancellors: funding problems, governance problems, and the problem of training vice-chancellors, teachers, and administrative staff that need capacity building. She characterized the report as a pioneering policy work for SPUs, with an established and actionable roadmap for their advancement.

The report proposes the implementation of almost 80 policy recommendations, providing timelines for short, medium, and long-term realizations. It identifies potential candidates to undertake the application of these recommendations and adds to them a set of more than 125 Performance Success Indicators. These recommendations target attempts to increase research quality, pedagogy, and syllabus; to enhance institutional and systemic funding capacities, upgrade governance structures, and boost the industry-academia interface to enhance student employability.

In summary, the policy report is a groundbreaking effort initiated by NITI Aayog to contribute to making SPUs world-class educational institutions. By providing a strong policy framework and actionable recommendation, it aims at bringing SPUs in line with India’s grand vision towards a developed nation by 2047. The report, through a comprehensive approach, opens up the possibility of potentially transforming the higher education landscape of India and generating a skilful and globally competitive workforce.