Universalization of education has been a policy priority, but it
still remains an unfulfilled dream. As a consequence, the spread of
secondary education is quite limited and higher education is
available to a small percentage of the population. The country has,
therefore, progressed very well in the field of technical education 1
both quantitatively and qualitatively. Dining recent times, India
has lain great stress on modernization and technological 2
advancement in education, and has contributed amazingly to
high-skilled manpower in software and information technology.
Despite our limited endeavours in other sphere of education, 3
India manages its own affairs on its own in almost all
the areas, and does not, in no way, depend on foreign expertise. 4
On the other hand, it provides all kinds of manpower to other 5
countries. In terms of policy, India had continued with the colonial
education system of the British rulers till about 1968, when the
Government had announced its first National Education Policy,
in which was in accordance with the requirements of the country, 6
but there was big gap between the policy and practice due to many 7
natural and man-made bottlenecks.
Another National Policy on education was announced in
1986, which, amongst other things, emphasized qualitative
improvement, essential in higher and technical education; 8
vocationalisation of secondary education; development of regional
languages. This policy revised in 1992, and was in line with the 9
earlier policy, but it far added to the inconsistencies and 10
contradictions between the stated goals and actual policy, on the
one hand, and between stated goals and resource allocation, on the
other.