Prof. Jandhyala B G Tilak
ICSSR National Fellow & Distinguished Professor
Council for Social Development,
New Delhi
Prof. JB Tilak (Brief Bio): Former Professor & Vice-Chancellor, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, Prof Tilak, an economist of education, holds a Ph.D. Degree in Economics of Education from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Dr Tilak was on the research and teaching faculty of the National University of Educational Planning and Administration, University of Delhi, Indian Institute of Education, University of Virginia and the Hiroshima University (Japan), and a Visiting Professor in Economics, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. He was also on the research staff of the World Bank. Prof Tilak has authored/edited twenty books and about 300 research papers in the area of economics of education and development studies, published in reputed journals. His current and past publishers (of his books) include Sage, Orient BlackSwan, Routledge/Taylor & Francis, Academic Foundation, and UNESCO-IIEP. Recipient of Swami Pranavananda Saraswati National Award of the UGC for his outstanding scholarly research in Education (1999), Dr. Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for distinguished research contributions to development studies (2003), Inspirational Teacher of the Year Global Education Award 2012, and Devang Mehta national education award for outstanding contribution to education (2015).
Dr Tilak had a privilege of delivering a keynote address to a meeting of the Noble laureates in Barcelona in 2005. Prof Tilak was the Editor of Journal of Educational Planning and Administration and is on the editorial board of several professional journals.
Professor Tilak also served as President of the Comparative Education Society of India (2010-12), and is on the Board of Directors of the Comparative Education Society of Asia.
Email - jtilak@csdindia.org; jtilak2017@gmail.com
Higher Education for Sustainable Development and Sustainable Development of Higher Education
For a long period, higher education has been neglected in the discourses on the role of education in development. It has been widely felt that it is literacy, primary and secondary education that are important in contributing to the reduction in poverty and inequalities, and improvement in economic growth, human development and social and political development. This view is slowly changing, albeit slowly. But this perception still dominated the formulation of EFA (education for all) targets, millennium development goals (MDGs), and also to some extent the goals relating to sustainable development (SDGs). Apart from commenting on the relationship between higher education and other SDGs, based on some of the most recent evidence, the paper shows that higher education has an important role in every aspect of development and argues that neglect of higher education will harm the fulfillment of not only development goals in general, but also the goals relating to elementary and secondary education.
For higher education to contribute to development, the development of higher education itself should be sustainable. The paper briefly reviews the policies and approaches for the development of higher education in India, and focuses on the rapid and massive expansion of higher education that is taking place, and the alarming rate of expansion of private higher education, it comments on whether the quantum and nature of expansion is sustainable. It argues that we may have to revisit some of the policies and approaches toward the development of higher education in India.
