Manickam Ramasamy | CEO | Rathinam Group of Institutions

The  aim  of higher education is  to  make  a  person to  play  his part  well as an  enlightened member of society. Rabindranath Tagore said, “The higher education is that which does not merely give us information, but makes life in harmony with all existence”. India has a large higher education sector and it has world’s third largest position in student population, after China and the United States. This is a remarkable achievement. It has significant advantages in the twenty first century knowledge race. But the challenges that the system faces is exceedingly high, daunting, and at times looks insurmountable.  The challenges confronting the Indian higher education system are challenging, complex and have different hues. One of the fundamental weaknesses of the system is lack of transparency and recommendations have been made to mandate high standards of data disclosures by institutions on performance.

Higher education system not only there for trains you in your field, but it also trains you to think analytically, understand subjects that are complex and have the ability to communicate them in an effective way. Additionally, it instills important skills like self-discipline, organization, and being able to finish a task from beginning to end. It also helps to turn you into a more professional person with work-related skills. Since you learn broad range of skills, you could end up in a field you didn’t necessarily study for. This can open up new and unexpected opportunities that might have not become available to everyone.

The main goal of higher education is to provide a direction and purpose to one’s life. If you aim to go far in that chosen direction, you need to set the stage for achieving higher education for yourself. We can draw a simple analogy here. A person who knows to drive a motorcycle hits the road with ease, but only in his motorcycle.

Preparing for a jump in one’s career:

If you joined your organization at the most basic level and you are ambitious to climb the ladder, you need supportive skills. These extra skills are gained by putting your time and energy in a course that gives you extra edge to score higher in your career ladder. In short, making time for achieving higher education in your chosen filed will directly reflect on your career prospects and you can definitely aim for promotions and perks in your work field.

Higher skill gain:

After exploring the benefits that one can achieve in one’s workplace let us now go beyond that circle and see how higher education can benefit. These days nobody sits with a single job in hand throughout his or her lifetime. Everybody likes to taste success at new destinations. To have confidence in emerging out from one’s familiar shell and taste unexplored waters, it needs lot of courage doubled with knowledge. We can get this only from higher education. All the skills and specializations derived from higher education help a person to explore unexplored territories and achieve higher excellence in life.

Intellectual development:

The more you study, the more you broaden your horizon and hence your perspective undergoes a serious transformation. According to Only Trade Schools, a person who has completed higher education certainly has a better perspective and ideas to help in community and societal development and has the capability to build a citizen friendly nation. Ideas and innovations that are garnered from people who have sought higher education provide a global competing space for the entire nation.

Motivation to pursue one’s passion for a subject:

If we like to prepare a chocolate cake, we try to find out the recipe and try it at our kitchen. Probably, the next time we may try to add some more ingredients to make it more delicious. Another time, we may add a touch of experimentation to give it a better look. So, every time the cake you make gets a higher level of transformation than the previous. In a similar way, a person pursues higher education out of passion too! If he loves to specialize in a subject, he would love to study more and gather more knowledge out of his previous degrees. That gives him a better edge than the rest pursuing similar interests.

Nowadays, the education system is undergoing a drastic change. We can see that the rank-based conservative system of education is being replaced by a much friendlier, grade based system of evaluation and merit. Scores are graded and not evaluated by marks. This helps a student to lessen the pressure on rote learning and gives way to a much broader perspective of rational thinking and open mindset. It creates space for better interaction and discussion about knowledge being taught. This is in the main stream. To achieve higher education at all levels of society, we have to think a little away from the main stream branches too.

Conventional thinking can be replaced by vocational learning that may not be so famous in the first place, but holds equal importance for a society to thrive. We can see the rise of many vocational and trade schools that offer specialization in many branches of non-conventional learning and they are formal courses too! Certificates and academic degrees are awarded even to these higher education courses and stand an equal chance to promote good higher education literacy in the country.

The privatization of higher education in India has certainly increased the bar when it comes to standards in learning, but is not reachable to all classes of society. To ensure that it is reaching out to the larger population, students must be encouraged to avail scholarships and study loans at banks with cheaper repayment interests. Also, a credit based higher education system as discussed before has the capability to transform the whole education system and take on research and development prospects to an all new level in the country.

With increase in literature and government actively spending on school and college education, the number of enrolments of students in higher education is also on the rise. It is very essential that we encourage students not to just look at the fancy side of a job and a good salary, but build an attractive career and track record with a good higher education. The country can see all round development if more number of people specialize in the subjects they choose because they can be assets for the future and the country depends on such scholars to rise in global competition.

About the Author

Manickam Ramasamy, CEO of Rathinam Group of Institutions was born in Kinathukadavu, Coimbatore. His schoolings where at GHS School and he completed his under graduate in Physics & Post-graduate in Computer Application at Govt. Arts College, Coimbatore. He completed his M. Phil at Bharathidasan University, Trichy. Currently he is pursuing his Ph. D in Bharathiar University. His area of specialization is ‘Data Mining’. He is having 15 years of teaching experience and 18 years of administrative experience. He has guided 4 M. Phil candidates. He is esteemed Senate Member of Bharathiar University for 3 times and member in various educational panel members. He is experienced in building and transforming educational institutions in all aspects since 2002.