Economic growth vs. higher education: Educational accessibility of marginalized communities in India

In comparison to the rest of the world, the Indian economy has done reasonably well during the global economic crisis and has registered a stable economic growth. However, relatively high economic growth coexists with the presence of widespread deprivation and exclusion. Higher education plays an important role in maintaining the stability in our economy as well as in strengthening the human capital. This paper questions how far the state is able to include all sectors in the economic growth process. What is the role of knowledge economy in strengthening human capability, while targeting to provide inclusive education? Mainly, this paper tries to find out the educational accessibility of marginal communities at the higher education level, compared to the economic growth rate of India. This paper also tries to highlight the importance of human capital formation, assurance of social development, and maintaining equity in education. In the methodological section, the content analysis method is applied to analyze the data from secondary sources. The major data sources are economic survey, NCERT reports and different educational statistics. The finding of this paper shows that the high economic growth has failed to place the marginal communities on the platform of higher education in India.