Privatization is a world wide phenomena and a careful perusal of the happenings in the arena of higher education demonstrate that new private providers may enhance the capacity to meet the unmet aspirations of the people in the regime of declining state budget, if certain conditions are met with the paradigm change in the development policy. Hence private participation in the financing and management of higher education should be encouraged to bring about efficiency in the system and make it more effective and relevant.

i)	Need for a Parliament Act for the establishment of a Private University.
ii)	To amend the existing university acts and statutes to free them from the constraints of jurisdiction imposed on them.
iii)	Parliament to review all existing central university acts and enable them to operate at a global level.
iv)	With proper encouragement for the establishment of private universities, a successful model of the university system where government-funded universities and self-financing universities can co-exist and become partners in strengthening the higher education system.
v)	It is important that the regulation of both government and private, universities should be on par as per Indian law.
vi)	By establishing private universities, the state will be in a position to provide good quality education with least or no financial assistance from the government.
vii)	Private universities will create a healthy competition among themselves thereby leading to better quality and lower cost of education.

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Independent Accreditation Body

National Policy on Education 1986 provided the provision for establishment of National Accreditation body for the maintenance and quality of Higher and Technical Education. Over the last almost 20 years, the impact of accreditation process have been very marginal. This calls for a serious review of the provisions made so far.

i)	The accreditation process must have total participation of all the stakeholders – Academia for maintaining proper standards of education, Industry for utilising resources of the society; and Society for the economic well being of the educational system.
ii)	It is estimated that hardly 10-15% of the total Higher and Technical Education System have gone through the accreditation process because of inadequate infrastructure facility and possibly because of inadequate participation of all the stakeholders.
iii)	Since the Higher Education has to compete and fulfill the needs of economic sectors competitively it is recommended that an independent accreditation body is established jointly by the stake holders.
iv)	The criteria and norms created by these Independent (proposed) Accreditation bodies should meet the minimum threshold as recommended by UGC/AICTE and should also meet the international standards.
v)	The institution, which excels in obtaining Accreditation, should be encouraged to levy higher tuition fees from those who can afford it.
vi)	All institutes of higher learning must make public the universal acceptability of their courses and degrees. Any misrepresentation of facts to the general public, should make the institute and its promoters, directors, and staff liable for civil prosecution.
vii)	An educational rating agency can help to address this problem.
viii)	The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is supposed to rate higher education institutions affiliated to the UGC. This is better done by private sector organisations than one single government backed organisation, even if it is supposedly autonomous.
ix)	One of the Government’s biggest concerns in education seems to be a feeling that the private sector would cheat the public if there were no government regulation. When a combination of regulations (SEBI, RBI etc.) and rating (by private agencies like Crisil, ICRA etc.) seems to have worked reasonably well in the financial sector, there is no reason why this can’t be implemented in the education sector too.

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Financing of Higher and Technical Education

There is need for increasing financial inputs for higher education. Currently the Government is also subsidizing the higher education by charging low fees to those who can pay. The cost of higher education is not being met by the educational institutions because of subsidy and fee restrictions.

There is also a severe mismatch in the costing at school level and higher education level. There is no single solution for educational affordability, however, a number of solutions exists which together can solve this problem.

i)	Fees should have some economic relationship with cost of education; ‘differential’ fee system based on the paying capacity of students should be introduced.
ii)	The industry, being the direct beneficiary of higher education, should contribute to educational development.
iii)	An Educational Development Bank (EDB) should be set-up with equity capital from Central/State Government and NRls.
iv)	Student welfare programmes should be given priority. The present scheme of providing loans to students should be streamlined and made facilitating.
v)	Efforts be made to raise resources for non-transitional sources such as industries and other commercial concerns, which are making use of this highly qualified and trained manpower.
vi)	The funds from industries and other business houses could be tapped by introducing courses relevant to the needs of industries and by undertaking consultancy research projects.
vii)	Encourage public and private sector enterprises to sponsor a specified number of students, especially in technical and professional fields, whom they can employ after graduation.
viii)	University should establish an Alumni association and get as many of its former students engaged in mobilising resources for the university.
ix)	Every university should create a corpus fund into which all donations, voluntary contributions, etc. should go. This fund should be deposited in fixed deposit and only interest be drawn from it for development purpose.
x)	MPs and MLAs who get a sizeable annual fund for development should be persuaded to contribute a portion of it to the university.
xi)	The need for mobilisation of resources from external sources should also be explored.
xii)	Universities can start special job and skill-oriented certificate or diploma courses.
xiii)	Some of the leading universities in the West earn enormous amount from their publishing activities. If a university is a store house of knowledge, it should dessiminate it through its publications.
xiv)	Universities can rent their premises for social and public functions.
xv)	Universities should also take the initiative to promote educational tourism.

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Promotion of Socially Relevant Education Programme

i)	Vocational streams have to be developed and expanded to equip larger number of high school students.
ii)	A comprehensive strategy is needed to enhance the nation’s employable skills.
iii)	The network of vocational training institutes and the range of vocational skills taught needs to be expanded.
iv)	The private sector, which promoted computer training institutes, should be encouraged to recognise the commercial potential of vocational training in other fields too.
v)	A national network of community colleges, similar to the highly successful American system, is needed to provide knowledge and job-oriented skills to those who lack interest in or are incapable of stringent academic studies.
vi)	Programme to introduce a career and market oriented skill enhancing add on courses that have utility for job, self-employment and empowerment of the students.