One should free oneself to chart one’s own career by taking courses suited to one’s capacity in various disciplines including humanities and arts. We need to produce all round students who can appreciate developments in as many fields as possible.
Dr. M. S. Rawat, Director, IQAC
Nagaland University, Lumami
E mail: msrckr@rediffmail.com
Higher education is concerned with the process in more advanced phase of human learning, where students are mentally mature and capable to analyze, synthesize and grasp concepts and ideas of all kinds at abstract level. Higher education refers to education in post higher secondary education institutions, colleges and universities. The topmost level of education is called higher education. Higher education aims at attaining equity, equality and excellence with social justice through knowledge generating processes by way of teaching, research and extension programmes. Higher education influences all levels of education. It affects every field of human endeavour by providing human resources for production, planning, management and scientific and technological developments. It, therefore influences the future of the nation. It contributes immensely towards national development through dissemination of specialized knowledge and skill. Higher education is important for its role in advancement of the frontiers of knowledge, discovering of newer technologies and their application in industry, business and agriculture for the betterment in life of the people. World Bank states “Higher education is of paramount importance for economic and social development. Institutions of Higher education have the main responsibility for equipping individuals with the advanced knowledge and skills required for positions of responsibility in government, business and the professions”. UNESCO emphasized that “State and society must perceive higher education, not as a burden on federal budgets but as a long- term domestic investments in order to increase economic competitiveness, cultural development and social cohesion”. Higher education system, it is also at the level of which prepares personnel for all other levels of education and expertise for greater variety of jobs that have to be manned in the social, economic and cultural sectors. Relation between higher education and development is a crucial one. Therefore, Higher education in any society is of vital importance in the whole educational system. If good primary and secondary education are like the strong stems of trees of society, higher education is like the fruits of these trees which are reaped in the form of socio-economic, industrial and technological development ultimately leading any nation towards better quality of life. Being at the apex of the educational pyramid, it has its own importance and place in almost all the societies of the world. In recent years, the scenario of Higher education has undergone a sea level change and prospect of Higher education has become more competitive and challenging.
John Henry Newman’s idea of a University is perhaps the universally accepted one. He describes it is an assembly of strangers from all parts in one spot. According to him, a University in its simple and rudimental form is a school of knowledge for every kind consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. It is a place for communication and circulation of thoughts by means of personal interaction. Perhaps Newman’s ideas have gone out of currency, for a University is today expected to churn out employable young men and women. The luxury of thinking and research seems suddenly to have been replaced by hard-nosed market ideologies. The market needs a certain product and the institutions of higher learning are expected to churn out those products. Human resource is now universally recognized as the most fundamental of all economic resources. Frederick Harbison rightly observed that human resources, not capital, nor income, nor material resources, constitute the ultimate basis for wealth of nations. Capital and natural resources are passive factors of production; human being are the active agents who accumulate capital, exploit natural resources, build social economic and political organizations; and carry forward national development. Clearly a country which is unable to develop the skills and knowledge of its people and to utilize them effectively in the national economy will be unable to develop anything else. The importance of higher education in accelerating the pace of socio-economic transformation of society through the development of highly skilled manpower has been duly recognized in India all through the Five Year Plans. Now the role of Higher education is constantly growing and knowledge based industries are now occupying the central place in the development process of the nation. Today, we are passing through a significant economic and technological transformation. Under this environment, the system of higher education needs to be strengthened to equip students with adequate skills and knowledge to enable their participation in the emerging knowledge society. More than 50% of the youth are below 25 years and employment opportunities are minimal. Now time has come to focus on technical and professional education. For students to compete with the rest of the world, we need quality education with a greater emphasis on technology enhanced skills development. Also one should free oneself to chart one’s own career by taking courses suited to one’s capacity in various disciplines including humanities and arts. We need to produce all round students who can appreciate developments in as many fields as possible. Investment in people and knowledge is the key to development of a nation and securing human welfare. Acquired abilities of people – their education, experiences, skills and health constitute the most important economic resource of a nation. It is human resources and investment in population quality which hold the key to future economic productivity and prosperity.
Nagaland has a progressive educational infrastructure at the school, college as well as University levels. The education system of Nagaland is very well organized. Nagaland is regarded as the state of knowledge seekers. The history of education in Nagaland dates back to 1878 when the first School was started in the Naga Hills. Higher education was started in 1959, when Fazl Ali College was established at Mokokchung. The North Eastern Hill University opened its campus at Kohima and a College of Agriculture at Mediziphema in 1974. It was in the year 1994 on 6th September the long cherished dreams of the Nagas became a reality, when Nagaland University came into existence. Nagaland University is a Central University (13th of the Central Universities of India) established by an act of Parliament in 1989. Nagaland University inherited a campus at Kohima and the School of Agricultural Sciences and Rural Development at Medziphema from North Eastern Hill University Shillong, Meghalaya. Later in the year 2000 Medziphema became a Campus of Nagaland University. At present the University has Kohima Campus at Meriema, Agricultural (SASRD) Campus at Medziphema, Engineering, Technology and Management at Dimapur. The Headquarters has been functional since April 2010 at Lumami in the Zunheboto district. Lumami is located almost at the centre of Nagaland State. There are about 54 Colleges affiliated to it with a total student enrolment of about 25000. Recently, Global Open University and ICFAI University are also functional in Nagaland under private sector. The main objectives of Nagaland (Central) University are “to disseminate and advance knowledge by providing instructional and research facilities in such branches of learning as it may deem fit; to make provisions for integrated courses in humanities, natural and physical sciences, social sciences, agricultural science, forestry and other allied disciplines in the educational programmes of the University; and to take appropriate measures for promoting innovations in teaching-learning processes, interdisciplinary studies and research, to educate and train manpower for the development of the State of Nagaland; and to pay special attention to the improvement of the social and economic conditions and welfare of the people of that State, their intellectual, academic and cultural development”. However, the immediate need of the hour is to focus on technical and professional education in Nagaland. Youth of Nagaland are aspiring for innovations in agriculture, development of industries, information and communication technology, space technology and knowledge driven enterprises. Every aspiring youth is eager to acquire new skills so that they can take advantage of the opportunities available in the technology driven knowledge world. Studies have shown that private expenditure on education rose 10.8 times between 1998 and 2004. During this period, the poor spent 12.4 times more on education. If the pursuit for education in private colleges and universities has grown so dramatically, what is it that the poor are paying for the private universities which public funded universities have failed to deliver? Conventional methods have not enabled our university to be part of the mainstream. Necessity is the mother of invention. Can we take advantage of revolutions in ICT technology? We must take initiatives to innovate the professional engineering education, Information & Communication Technology, Electronics Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Biotechnology, Agricultural Engineering and Space Technology etc.
